This weekend marks the three month anniversary of the accident. It’s crazy to realize that a life can be changed completely in less than a second, and even crazier that I have no memory of the split second that changed mine. Right now, I’m none of the things I was last year (grad student, full time CBU staff, violinist, homemaker), but God has used this time of dependence and waiting to shower me with unconditional love from my husband, my family, and all of you….love that is a free gift and has nothing to do with my physical, mental, and emotional abilities. Thank you all! ❤

This three month anniversary also marks the start of some very important progress! On Monday, I was given clearance to finally put some weight on my legs (and yes, this came 10 days earlier than we had planned!). My first weight-bearing experience was in a machine that lifted me into a standing position so that my legs were bearing my weight, but the machine took care of the actual “standing up” muscle movements for me.  Our next goals are to practice standing up and sitting down from the wheel chair without the help of a machine (but still with someone holding my waist to keep me from falling). In daily life, I will continue to be totally reliant on a wheelchair until I have a track record of safe movements with my therapists, which will probably be another couple of months at least. But nevertheless, I can’t describe how amazing it felt to actually use my legs for the first time since December 3rd!!!

Confession: I was actually a little nervous to do the whole standing up thing (okay, maybe a lot nervous), since I have had some pretty excruciating physical therapy moments along the way…. but God was very good, and somehow it barely hurt at all! I think that’s also a shout-out to physical therapists – when they give you homework exercises, they absolutely know what they’re doing!  So, while the journey toward walking will most likely stretch out until September, I’m super glad to finally be getting started! 🙂