Confused ???

     Today started out as rainy and with nothing too excited to report. Prissy got a day pass or rather a pass for about 3 hours to go handle some business issues that she could only take care of in person. I wasn't going to post today because not much else happened; that is until tonight...

     Tonight for the 2nd night straight Scilla has claimed that the muscle spasms occuring in her stomach were painful and that she could feel it. She says the pain was so bad that she called my mom crying and upset; saying that she was in pain. My mom prayed for her and tried to comfort her over the phone. We are not sure what is going on, but the Doctor had to be called at home to give authorization for medication for the spasms. I am online researching and trying to find out something to make sense of all this.

     Scilla's injury is from T9 down, which means that she should not be able to feel anything below her breast bone. There are cases of people regaining some feeling after SCI; but I am not sure if that means anything as far as her paraylsis is concerned. This whole muscle spasm, feeling, and paraylsis stuff has got me saying hmm... right about now; but I have prayed about it and asked God for healing and restoration and I will never loose faith in his ability to heal and perform miracles; but I also try not to get my hopes up or hers because I would hate to see her disappointed.

    If I find any relevant research tonight, I will let everyone know what I discover; until then I am going to continue to have faith, knowing that I serve a great God and an awesome God is capable doing things that man may never understand.

"walking in faith..."

Fun Friday; Saturday and Sunday day passes...

     I haven't posted all weekend because I have taken this time to relax, do somethings for myself and SHOP! Prissy enjoyed both her day passes and although it was very tiring for her, she is continuing to do more. She went to Wal-Mart and we went to dinner Sunday at Ruby Tuesdays. She did well at Ruby's for the most part; she did get a little frustrated at the salad bar because she couldn't reach everything she wanted and was not able to carry her plate on her own. She did attempt to try these things and although I was at the bar with her and told her that as time goes on she will get better; she was still a little frustrated.
     I see the progress that she has made, but I see that she still needs A WHOLE LOT OF WORK! It looks as  though when she comes home on May 12th that she is still going to need around the clock help and will not be able to be alone at anytime. I don't know how long it is going to take, but I can't wait until she is independent enough to transfer from her chair on her own, because I think that will just make life easier for her; not having to depend on someone else all the time.
       She has been having muscle spasms and says she felt one in her stomach today. I want to believe her and I have faith that God does, can and will work miracles, but at the same time I do not want to give her false hope. So at times when she says she can feel, I try to change the subject or make a joke because I don't know how I should react.
    On a lighter note, I have noticed Prissy is smiling a lot more and seems to be returning to her happy self . Here are some pictures from the past week:

Pushing Aunt Scilla going to look for Tracie (therapist)

Doing their supermodel pose!

Prissy had to chase her in a circle and sing Hannah Montana!

Great Recreational therapy ;)

Throwing up their peace signs!

Travion, Scilla's foster son!

Lastly, I leave you with a video of Mimi and Scilla playing outside; they were having a great time and although we didn't know it at the time, it was great therapy for Prissy!

Not too much going on here lately....

    Scilla is doing very well. She is continuing to get stronger and working on achieving all her therapy goals. She will have her conference tomorrow and we will know if we are still on track for discharge on May 12. Also her doctor has suggested two day passes for the weekend! I will be sure to take lots of pictures! Please continue to pray for Baby Emma and her parents.

Praying for Scilla's complete healing and restoration and for Baby Emma's healing!

wordless Wednesday...

Not much going on today, so I will include 2 pictures and take this opportunity to ask for prayers for Baby Emma, who had her shunt put in on Tuesday. Please pray that the fluid drains as the doctors would like and that her wound from her back surgery continues to heal. Also pray for baby Elyjah who will be having cateract surgery on the 29th, he is only 5 months old, but was born was 4 months early.

Above is after church on Sunday at my house

Aunt Scilla and her favorite girl who makes Aunt Scilla's world go 'round and 'round!

SCI support group

    Prissy had a very good day. She has been in a "Funk" the past couple of days, so it was a great change of pace to see her a little fiesty today. I had the opportunity to go with her and her therapist to the Spartanburg Spinal Cord Injury Support Group meeting tonight. I really enjoyed meeting all of the really nice people and the group's leader, Dot, who visited Scilla at the RCP last week. Everyone there was so friendly and gave Priss some great advice and told her that everything she is worried about now will become second nature to her and that she is still "new" out. Once she get further out she will learn to adapt and find a way to do things.
 
    The group is really supportive and gave great advice on everything. One lady, Ms. Cynthia who has had her injury since birth is a fiesty little something and I absolutely loved talking to her. Both Cynthia and Dot gave Scilla some great advice and they even talked about how tasks such as grocery shopping by yourself requires adaptation. For example, Dot shops with a basket and just makes several trips to the front to drop off a basket and then fill another if she has a lot of shopping to do. You may ask why Dot doesn't get into a motorized cart and shop? The answer is simply that she doesn't want to run the risk of someone stealing or taking off with her $8,000.00 wheelchair! Ms. Cynthia, who is well over 50 drives a three wheeled motorized chair now and she takes produce bags, tie them together, then attached one end to the center of the shopping cart and the other to the back of her chair and pulls the cart behind her.

      Some other great advice was:

• From Ms. Cynthia: Don't be afraid to fall! You have already taken the big fall anyways; you fell 40 ft when you had your accident. Also make sure your wheelchair seat is snug to you and has sturdy arm handles.
• From Ms. Dot and Cynthia: Solid tires are better than air tires because you don't run the risk of getting a flat or puncturing a tire.

I noticed that almost everyone there did drive a van of some sort, which makes more sense to me if you are going to drive with hand controls because you have a better chance of successfully getting your chair into the car independently. I really enjoyed the meeting and look forward to meeting more new people and learning more.

"Walking in faith..."

Home Evaluation...

    Today was a pretty good day for Prissy! I got a wake up call at about 7:30 a.m. from her; she wanted me to meet her and her therapists at her apartment for her home evaluation.  Here are the results:

• The first problem I saw was that the handicap sidewalk entrance is a small distance from her apartment and someone had partially blocked it.
    
• Once on the sidewalk, she wheeled down to her apartment and had no problem entering because the doors were wide enough for her to enter comfortably.
    
• Once through the door, came the next problem in my opinion; carpet throughout the entire apartment except the bathrooms and kitchen.
   
• Her hallway is narrow, but she fit through with no problem. Her furniture is really big and some pieces had to be removed to allow her to pass through to her bedroom.
   
• The bedroom is a good size for an apartment, but her bed is too high and the options are to either remove the railing from the bed and put the box spring and mattress on the floor or get a new bed. Also in the bedroom, her bed will need to be shifted to the wall so that she can have enough room to enter bed on the side that is not against the wall.
   
• The bath in her bedroom is OK, but the height and width is of concern as to whether or not her bath bench will fit. The guest bath has a better tub, but she may have trouble getting into it.
• My biggest concern is the kitchen. Her apartment has a galley style kitchen that is very small. Something VERY SIMILAR to this picture I found on google:

Prissy's kitchen is very narrow like this one and it presents a lot of concerns for me and I do not feel comfortable with her even attempting to try and go in there to cook or get anything out the fridge for that matter. She would have to most likely back her wheel chair into the kitchen to even open the refrigerator. Also to put anything in the oven she would have to be on either side and could run the risk of burning her legs and not knowing it. While there, she rolled into her kitchen and got stuck because her chair is just about the same width of the kitchen and Greg had to help get turned around.

       Although there are some issues with her current apartment; it is not enough for her therapists to say that she will not be able to come home in May. I am hoping and praying that her apartment is temporary and that we are able to find her an accessible home that will allow her to be independent and do one her favorite things, cook!

A blessed Sunday....

     I hope everyone had a great Sunday, we sure did! I began my Sunday praying and saying to God that I am thankful for the rain and we needed it, but to please let it stop before I had to go pick Prissy up for day pass visit. I prayed that the rain would stop and hold off until I returned her back to RCP this afternoon; thank you God for hearing and answering my prayer!

     I arrived at RCP around 10:30 to pick up Prissy. After gathering everything we would need and signing her out. We went down and she did an excellent drive getting into the car. I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure how she would react to being inside a moving car, since her accident happened in a car. She was a little tense at first, but I could see her start to relax as I was driving.

    Once we arrived at church and I pulled into a parking space, she said to that she should not have come because she didn't want everyone to see her getting into her chair. I told her that there would be times when she would be around more people and have to get into the chair and that she was beautiful and for her not worry about others because she was there to give God praise. Our first attempt at getting her out of the car did not go as well as we practiced and we had to call for Uncle Perry to come quickly and help us lift her back into the car and we would start over. With the help of my Uncle Perry, Greg, and Scilla's son, A.D we were able to get her out successfully, but still with some kinks on the 2nd try.

     Once inside the church, the worship leader announced her presence and the congregation stood and gave her an applause; which made her cry. God's presence was definitely felt in our service today and the choir dedicated a melody of songs to her and my family. As the choir sung, the Holy Spirit touched me, it touched my who shouted and praised God throughout the service; it even touched Scilla who at one point was praising God and moving so much in her chair that I though she may just get up and walk!
    
     Today was our women's day celebration at church and the topic was "Let it be". The speaker spoke about Mary and Elizabeth in Luke 1 having God's favor and that  blessed are those women who believe that what God has said to them, shall be done. My sister believes God for her healing and restoration and because she believes him for those things; they shall be done. At the end of the sermon, the speaker invited those who desired to come to the alter for prayer. My sister wheeled herself to the alter  and after the guest minister prayed; she began immediately to speak to my sister and she knew nothing of what had happened, but she said when my sister was wheeled into the church she felt the spirit enter with her. She said my sister was going to be OK and she felt like God was going to do things in my sister's life that we wouldn't understand.

     God really blessed on us Sunday and we felt his presence throughout the day. Before heading back to the hospital, we came by my house for a small family dinner. Prissy was so tired from all and it took a lot of convincing to get her out the car. Once in the house, she had a good time, but you could tell she was exhausted. On my way returning her to the hospital, I asked her if she wanted to go down Mauldin Rd. or Laurens Rd. to Faris. The reason I asked was I didn't want to take her Mauldin Rd. way if she didn't feel comfortable, because that is where her accident occurred. She said she wanted to go Mauldin Rd. way and see where her accident happened because she didn't really remember. Once we got to the spot of the accident and I showed her the deep and densely wooded area; all she could say was wow, I can't believe I lived through that; God had to save me."


"Walking in Faith..."