Five years... Full Circle

I’m still processing a lot. Trauma is an evil thing, yet our brains were perfectly created to protect ourselves during this pain and chaos.

Emmy prays and wishes on stars (or begs to have a genie grant her wishes) to be able to walk again. It breaks my heart. And if I let myself go “there” I start to get that pain in my chest and sadness that quickly takes my thoughts to a place of anger and frustration. But the further we get from our time in Boston, I find it easier and easier to divert my thoughts and remind Emmy (any myself) we are so much better now than we were a year ago. Time is moving slowly on this road we call rehabilitation but I’ll take slow over going backward, like we did for the first 3 years of this disease.

I’m not sure if Emmy will walk again. We have found 2 promising therapies that may help get her balance and gait back, but it costs a lot of “out of pocket” money. But right now, I just want to let Emmy be. She’s going to school. Getting therapy. Getting ready to start hippo therapy (horseback) and just enjoying being out of the hospital. But yesterday we did see a throat doctor. And it looks like we will be going under sedation very soon to fix this noisy breathing. He gave us hope that it isn’t a nerve issue but just a joint issue. I’ll post more as the time comes, but our first procedure will be trimming the flap of skin that makes the bulldog sound and he will gather more data to give us a definitive on whets happening to her chord. I just keep saying that everything Satan tried to take away, God will return in full. That will be my mantra till the ends of the earth!

Then we did this thing Wednesday night. We went bowling with Randy’s co-workers. It’s very hard for me to see how Emmy would enjoy things that are adjusted to her disability so I thought she would hate it. But she loved it. It was similar to when she wants to dance, so we just push her in circles in her wheelchair to the beat, yet she LOVES it. The boys helped set her up and she laughed with such glee it melted my heart. She had a strike and beat both boys!

As we started to get ready for bed that night another part of my PTSD brain opened up. I remembered that the day before Emmy had a seizure at the Smithfield pool in 2014 (that uncovered her HLH and started the disabilities) we went bowling with our neighbors. She loved bowling. And she loved it Wednesday night as much as she did then. And even though it looks nothing like the way she bowled 5 years ago, I’ll take every second of it.