Day 64, Monday October 26

Day 64, Monday October 26

Jeff woke up feeling slightly better today. Not great, but better. They have been working on adjusting his nerve medications more and it seems his body, in general, is doing much better on a lower dose. The transition areas (from live to dead nerves in his arms, chest, and back) have been a lot more painful though. This is one of those "you win some, you lose some" situations. We hope they find a good balance soon.

Today's therapy consisted of testing out a truck that they are considering buying. The therapists helped transfer Jeff into and out of it twice and Annette did it by herself once! It worked really well with the slide board. It's very encouraging to have something go so smoothly after such a rough patch.

If they buy the truck they will need to lower it to help Jeff get in and out easier. We also expect that it will be sometime next year when they will do all the conversions for him to be able to drive it.

With fewer nerve medications in his system Jeff's swelling is slowly beginning to go down in his hands. His second session of therapy today focused solely on massaging his hands to reduce the excess fluid because it is making it difficult for him to accomplish what he needs to do. The lotion that was used left his skin feeling gritty though and he joked that he needed sand paper to fix it. 

A huge thank you to Max Nielsen for staying with our dad tonight. We know he always enjoys your visits! 

We are grateful for the improvement our dad is experiencing, even if it's not as much as we would like. Anything is better than nothing! It's amazing how much easier it is to count your blessings when you feel the slightest bit better, even if you are still suffering. We've seen more of our dad's "spark" today than we have in a while.

We are taking things day by day right now because of how drastically they can change in such a short amount of time. Things are looking up today for the first time in several days and we pray they continue on that way. 

Thank you all for the prayers, well wishes, warm thoughts, and extra love lately. It's been needed and greatly appreciated by all of us!