Like typical Brad fashion, Brad’s already home from the Shirley Ryan Ability Lab!
When I walked in the room to visit him Friday, July 16 he told me he’s being discharged Sunday. I think my response was something like, “Sunday…like in two days?” to which he responded, “Yes!”.
Quicker than we expected, but should I really be surprised?!

After talking with the social worker she explained that insurance claimed he was “too good” to be an inpatient, and was ready for outpatient therapy. They would have loved to keep Brad a little longer to help him improve even quicker, but they agreed they couldn’t really make a case for him to stay longer.

While at first we were hesitant about Brad staying at a rehabilitation center, the care he received at Shirley Ryan was great (and we were slightly hesitant about him coming home!) Over the ten days Brad was at Shirley Ryan, he received a lot of physical, occupational, and speech therapy as well as evaluations. He will continue outpatient therapy three days a week through a Shirley Ryan location closer to home.

Sunday was a day filled with emotions. The girls were SO EXCITED to see their dad after 25 long days of being apart. Brad was of course thrilled to hold them in his arms too.

While Brad is still surprising the doctors, and now therapists, that doesn’t mean there aren’t still struggles. Brad has come such a far way in such a short time, but he still has many things that he has to overcome.

His surgery was in a “language” part of his brain so he is struggling with coming up with the right word, spelling, letters, and recall. His short term memory is also lagging. He actually feels like his cognitive/speech therapy is the most taxing and tiring. He needs to take breaks, and show himself a lot of grace as his brain is working hard at rewiring and healing.

He is still weaker on his right side (and in general) so moving around the house is a bit slower. He is still having vision problems in his right peripheral so he occasionally bumps into things because he just plain can’t see them. He has been getting numbness, tingles, and weird sensations throughout his limbs. Which COULD be a good sign of things “waking up” but we aren’t certain.

Brad is having to relearn a lot of things that we all take for granted on a daily basis. It has been eye opening to realize how blessed we are to just pick up a book and read, cook ourselves a meal, drive to the store, or run around with our kids…We honestly don’t even give it a thought, until we aren’t able to do it anymore.

While we are so grateful to see how far Brad has come, you can imagine that at times dealing with these things can be frustrating. In Brad’s words, “I just don’t feel like me”.

We are hopeful that Brad will continue to improve in all of these areas. As of right now there are a lot of unknowns. (I hate to say we are getting used to this!) It could all come back completely, it might not come back, or could be any where in between. Also in Brad’s words, “If this is the worst I have to deal with, I’m happy.”

So for right now, all we can do is pray real hard and keep working on his therapy! Everything is in God’s timing.

Brad’s attitude and motivation through this has been incredibly inspiring. He doesn’t remember much about surgery and the days following so he’s also been learning more about what exactly happened this last month. That alone has been a lot to take in!

So we ask for continued prayers as we are onto the next leg of this race. (Or should I say next lap around those Jericho walls.)
Outpatient therapy starts next week and the kids happened to have camp this week, so we are enjoying a few days of slowing down and adjusting to this new (and hopefully temporary) normal.

Thank you for the continued support. Brad has slowly been working through ALL the cards, emails, texts, and voicemails we have received. He had NO IDEA how much support and prayers we had, especially through those first extra scary days. He’s completely humbled and we still feel so loved.

Ways you can continue to pray for us:
+Thank you for more steps in the right direction
+Thank you our family is back together again
+Thank you for so many answered prayers
+Physical, mental, and emotional strength
+Patience, endurance, and more patience!
+Easy transition into therapy
+Feeling to be fully restored in Brad’s limbs
+Cognitive function and vision to improve
+Clear direction from God to know what are our next steps are

Living in so much unknown can be really hard. But it’s sitting in that unknown that makes us fully dependent on God. He hasn’t failed us yet, so why would He now? We will continue to put our trust in Him to guide our path. Our biggest prayer is for clarity so we can make decisions with certainty. We know God’s plan will always be better than our own. We’ve seen His mighty hand at work already.

Staying strong and courageous even in the unknown,
Lindsey