And Now A Word From Barbara!

Hello everyone! Greg has been so faithful at keeping up with the blog. I have no idea what a blog is... so I am writing this the old fashioned way and Greg will blog it. He is so wonderful. We thought it was time for me to let everyone know exactly how well I am doing. I did have therapy today and will go back tomorrow. Nothing that exciting today but when I look back at where I started, I am amazed at what God has done for me. It has been a long and difficult journey and God has shown me so much (Himself, His power and His love for me). I had so many wonderful doctors, nurses and therapists. But it was God that gave me the help when I was weak, the hope when all seemed dark and healing (both physical and spiritual).

Therapy is going well. I enjoy going and being around others. They have me standing and the goal for now is 7 minutes while doing dishes. My record is 6 minutes while holding on to the bars for dear life. I still need someone to hold on to me since I am unable to keep my balance (I tend to fall backwards). Stacey, my therapist, has me up and walking with my walker and she holds on to me. My goal is to walk 30 feet. I consistently am able to do this 3 times each day. Again, I need Stacey to keep me upright so I don't fall backwards.

My long term goal is to walk 80 feet without going over backwards. One day I actually walked 95 feet but Stacey called it a fluke and asked what I had eaten for breakfast (SUPER Sugar Crisps)!

We are still waiting for in-home services since I still require a lot of help with everyday tasks. The wound on my leg is still struggling to heal. It was cultured and found to be growing a couple of nasty bugs. I just finished the antibiotic but Greg still has to wash and dress it every day. We both would appreciate your prayers for these matters as well as the financial mess of things. It is a common thing to get calls from doctors, hospitals and nursing home telling us that Medicare or insurance is refusing to pay. Thank you all for your months of prayers. I could feel each one of them. They gave me strength and God saw me through it all. He continues to have His hand upon every aspect of this ongoing saga.

Love, Barbara

A Beautiful Day

After a week where Barbara continues to make great strides in rehab, it has been quite a blessed weekend.

Jackie and Peter are here visiting for the weekend, which will include a small belated wedding celebration among the folks here at GFM. We went over to Merrillville to do a little shopping and decided to stop by the hospital where our long journey started to say hello to the wonderful nurses in the nuero-intensive care unit at Methodist. Barbara began crying as we made our way down the long hallway, and I began to feel bad about taking her there. There were 4 or 5 nurses there and they all took the time for hugs, big smiles, and a small amount of catching up. It was a weird sort of deja vu for Jackie and Peter and me as we retraced much too familiar and painful steps. It was so wonderful to see that these special ladies who invested so much care and love in us still cared and loved! We hope to stop by again during a different shift to catch some of the others.

In an eerie coincidence, the room where it all began was uninhabited, and we got to go in for a quick peek. Barbara's memories of this part of her experience are very, very foggy. Think about how weird your dreamlife can be at times, and I suppose that might compare to what the experiences was like for her. Not that it was a dream by any stretch of the imaginootion. Rather, her memories are disjointed and bizarre at times. We're all thankful that she can't remember the horrors that her body went though. Barbara does hate that she lost a chunk of her life and missed so many important dates (thanksgiving, Christmas, anniversary, etc.).

I wish that we were rich in this one instance so that I could shower gifts upon the beautiful women who took care of us (they were important to me as well). I hope that our love and prayers will bless them and their families just as they blessed us. We simply don't give enough credit to the women (and men) who do the job of nursing. And this particular group of ladies raise a high standard for the rest.

Barbara continues to walk more and more at therapy. I'm so proud of her progress. This weekend she has been as giddy as a school girl to have our little girl and her, uh, not so little husband with us. We love them both and it's always so nice to have them here.

More updates will follow... I'm still here... and we still need your prayers. We're still wading through the muck and mess of Medicaid and we're blessed to have a man as wonderful as Curt Binnion helping us deal with insurance issues far too complicated for my mind's comprehension. Our live as been a series of blessings dotted with a few fleas of junk. Thanks to the blessings of your prayers and so many people, we're able to swat the fleas away and give God the glory He deserves. Even if you are not a follower of Christ, when you do good work, when you reach out a hand to help someone heal, you are doing the work of Christ.

Slow Road to Recovery

I can't believe it's been as long as it has since I last posted. I can't say that there's a tremendous amount of stuff to report. Barbara is doing well at rehab, although progress is predictably slow. She is back to walking again with minimal assistance and a walker. Our biggest struggle right now is getting this Medicaid Waiver stuff taken care of. It's amazing how many people who handle these issues know so little about these issues. We seem to know more about the waiver than 99% of the 99,000 people we've talked to trying to get things started. I've said it before and I'll say it again, anyone who thinks national healthcare is a good idea should spend a day working with government "insurance" programs already in place. This is a great country, but we can thoroughly bungle any good thing we try to do!

Keep us in prayer that the waiver issue will be solved so that I can finally get some help here! I feel over my head most of the time. Nevertheless, God is blessing us in many ways. It's so wonderful having Barbara here and I thank God for that every day.

Just to get you fully up to speed, though, Barbara still does not walk on her own, but is working on it in rehab. She also requires my help doing many things most of us take for granted. She is upbeat about her progress and quite tired from all the exercises she does.

Thanks for your ongoing prayers for our financial situation. I still have no idea how this will all turn out, but again, God has helped us this far and I have no reason to think He'll back off now!

First Day of School

Well, at least it seems like the first day of school for Barbara. That was our joke as we got her ready to go to her first day of rehab this morning. She now has had the blessing of getting to ride in a van IN her wheelchair. There was a bit of trepidation on her behalf, but I'm praying all will go well.

She will be going to outpatient rehab 3 times a week for about 6 and a half weeks. A driver will pick her up and bring her back each of those days, for the afternoon. It felt like she was going to school because I had to pack her a lunch (she actually leaves late morning), and she had to pack a few things to keep her occupied during the downtime. So, it felt like she was preparing to set off for her first day in kindergarten.

Please pray that this will be an extremely successful time of rehab, and that Barbara will soon be able to walk again... on her own.

One other prayer request I'll pass along. Barbara's dad is not doing well health-wise, and she's very upset about it. He needs to know Christ as his savior as well, and I think that's a big part of Barbara's concern. He was able to come up with Barb's mom, his sister, and a cousin yesterday for a visit. I've included a few pictures of that. Please help us pray for Barb's dad... for both his physical and spiritual health.