Walking With Grace

It is truly surreal to realize our accident story started one year ago today! God’s grace has brought us way farther than most people would have predicted if they looked at the injury reports on this day last year…and yet even as we sit down to write this commemorative post, I’m reminded of just how far we have yet to go.

For those of you who have been praying and following our recent “seizure saga”, we do have some good news to report. I had another severe incident the day after Thanksgiving that landed me in the ER…again. (As in, I’ve been there so many times this month that the staff already knew who we were when Ivan and my dad brought me in. Yikes.) However, while the event was highly unfortunate, God did use it to produce some much-needed fruit. I’d already been referred for a 5 day EEG study to help solve the mystery of what exactly is happening in my brain…but we’d been warned the waiting list for that test was at least 2 months long. “2 months” sounded nearly catastrophic to us, since the severity of my recent episodes has caused therapy to be suspended and relegated me back to a transport wheelchair any time I need to leave the apartment (definitely a downer given how hard I worked to be wheelchair-free earlier this year). HOWEVER…after last week’s incident someone (probably a doctor but also absolutely God) worked something miraculous…and the short story is that I’m being admitted to Kaiser Redwood City to begin the study tomorrow. Tomorrow. Giant thanks to God, and to all our prayer warriors!

If I’m being honest, I must admit that a transport wheelchair and yet another hospital admission were not in my original vision of how we would commemorate our first “accident-aversary.” But nevertheless, these are the things God chose as best for this day and this upcoming week, and we desperately need them both. While recovery might not always be linear (only moving forward and upward), it’s always moving in the exact direction that God wants. And for now, we are full of thanks for what He’s already done, and full of prayers and hope for the much-needed clarity this week could produce.

Ivan: Wow. One year…so many emotions come with this landmark date. First and foremost, glory to God for all He has done, is doing, and will continue to do! He knows the span of our days from beginning to end, and His loving, glorious purpose will stand. This day last year God chose to spare Grace’s life, and we trust that He has more for her here on earth before she comes home to be with Him forever.

As Grace said, we hoped that by the one year mark we would’ve left the “critical” stage of her recovery and have moved on to the slow-and-steady part of her recovery…but the recent resurgence of seizures has forced us back into a period of multiple hospital trips and even another multi-day hospitalization. But God knew this was coming too, and we will keep trusting Him.

Thank you all for your continuing prayers for us! We can’t thank God enough for all of you, and we hope you all know how much we love and appreciate you all! May God keep working in all of our lives, and may we live open to His love, grace, and guidance. He gives us peace in the midst of the storm. To Him be the glory forever!

Hi everyone! First off, Ivan and I owe a giant THANK YOU for all the love, prayers, and concern we received after Ivan’s post 10 days ago. The love God shows us through you all is literally a pillar of support for each new trial we face. So, from the bottom of our hearts: thank you!!

From the medical side, I wish I had more positive news to report, but we haven’t made it that far yet. Some of you may know that I spent the Sunday night and Monday after Ivan’s post as an inpatient in the neurology unit at Stanford, but we will need to do a more extensive test before we get good, solid answers to share with you all.

But in the meantime….it’s THANKSGIVING! I don’t think there’s any mistake in the timing of all this: what better challenge from the Lord than to seek a thankful heart in the midst of uncertainty and waiting? So here’s some things we would be very remiss if we didn’t celebrate this week:

1. I can walk, talk, eat, and think! Just around this time last year, all of those were thrown into serious jeopardy.
2. God has placed us in the perfect location for our needs at the moment (close to my parents, Kaiser, and Valley Christian).
3. God worked through many people – especially our loving and concerned Hillside family – to provide a job for Ivan that placed us in the ideal location I just described.
4. MY FAMILY. I literally have no idea where we would be without them. I think we all hoped that Mom would have graduated from extensive “babysitting” and medical care duties by now. But even as these needs resurface so unexpectedly, she’s jumped back in with her whole heart, and Dad and Anna have been right beside her. Not to mention the five months she spent living with us in Riverside earlier this year.
5. Ivan. He’s embraced more pressure and responsibility than anyone could say was reasonable for a 23/24 – year-old…and done it with a consistent faith in God’s love and unwavering love for me…no matter what my latest “problem” happens to be. As we approach our second anniversary, I really can’t imagine a better best friend or husband.

And last, because He is the most important….I’m thankful for our loving Heavenly Father. No matter how difficult each day may be, I’m thankful we can cling to what we know of Him. He created us, saved us, loves us unconditionally. He saw and planned the end of my and Ivan’s journey before we were born, or met each other –  much less started the beginning of it almost a year ago. And the best part is: He never makes mistakes.

Ivan: Hello everyone! A lot has happened recently that we’d like you all to be aware of and that we’d appreciate lots of prayer for.

Two Thursdays ago (11/2), Grace met with a new neurologist who specializes in epilepsy. She diagnosed Grace with permanent focal epilepsy, which means that the seizures are coming from a specific part of the brain, as opposed to a “generalized seizure” which occurs throughout the entire brain. Unfortunately, since Grace’s seizures originate from the parts of her brain that were damaged by the strokes, they are permanent…you can’t reverse a stroke. This was a huge blow for us, because not only did we just recently learn that Grace’s “episodes” were actually seizures (we were hoping they were TBI-caused episodes that she’d eventually grow out of), but while we knew that seizures can range from mild to severe, we didn’t expect to receive a diagnosis of permanent focal epilepsy (which is pretty serious).

The following Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, after adjusting some medication, Grace continued to experience seizures, but this time with new symptoms indicating a severe form of seizure. We reported these new developments to Grace’s neurologist, and on Wednesday her neurologist called us and gave more news: based on the symptoms we reported, Grace is at risk for status epilepticus. This is a condition in which a person enters a prolonged seizure or a series of back-to-back seizures from which they don’t come out. It can be fatal.

The doctor adjusted Grace’s medication again, and Grace began taking the new meds on Wednesday. The goal of epilepsy medication is to control the seizures (meaning, prevent any from happening), not necessarily eliminate the seizures–but on Thursday, Grace had another seizure. Which brings us to…

Friday, November 11. Yesterday morning, Grace was doing her morning exercises when an unexpected loud sound triggered a seizure. I was there with her, so I gave her a “rescue” med that’s supposed to quickly prevent more seizures from happening. A minute later, she had a second, then a third. I gave her more of her rescue drug. Twenty minutes later, she had a fourth seizure which lasted more than five minutes, which was my cue to call 911. Grace’s fourth seizure lasted a total of twenty minutes, during which time she was unresponsive, crying, breathing rapidly and showing a rapid heart-rate. The paramedics arrived and brought Grace to the ER. I caught up with them at the ER and learned that Grace had had a fifth seizure en route to the hospital–they’d given her even more of the rescue drug then.

Grace and I spent yesterday afternoon in the ER as the doctors monitored her to see if the medication finally worked to suppress any further seizures from happening. During our stay, Grace had a sixth seizure…cue more drugs. But praise the Lord, they stopped at six. Around 4:30pm they let us go, and we picked up even more new meds on our way home. Grace was very, very drugged–her thought process and speech were slowed, her balance was impaired, and she felt very nauseous.

We got home and tried to eat something but she couldn’t keep it in…after a few minutes we tried to eat again, and this time everything stayed down. All of last night Grace basically couldn’t support her own weight, her mind was very cloudy, and she could barely keep her eyes open more than ten seconds. The way a lot of these epilepsy drugs work is to slow down the electrical impulses in your brain, so that a seizure can’t occur (a seizure is like an “electrical storm” in your brain).

This morning Grace is still very drugged and is mostly bed-ridden. I don’t want to think about how much drugs they pumped into her body yesterday…not to mention the hundreds of thousands of pills/IV dosages she’s had since December 3 last year. She’s been incredibly brave and strong, still trusting God. But she was scared yesterday, and I was scared.

From a human perspective, this is all too close to death. For the believer, death means meeting Jesus face to face and being with Him forever, which is the best, in the most literal sense of that word. But while we are earth-bound, death reminds us that sin has broken the world, and our lives.

But God is still sovereign, still good, still gracious and merciful and in control, and powerful and faithful and worthy of all praise, glory, worship and honor. Our Lord Jesus has overcome all, and we will keep walking with Him.

Thank you all for walking with us! Grace and I “thank our God every time we remember you.” We love you all, and thank God for loving us first. To Him be all the glory now and forever!

Hello, everyone! I realize it’s been a while since my last update, but my mind’s been moving a little slower lately due to medication changes (here’s Ivan’s take on our newest brain stuff 🙂 )

Anyway, as the calendar creeps ever closer to our first accident-anniversary (“accidentaversary” for short!), I want to share something very important with you: I’m not trying to get my life back anymore. For almost a year now,  “getting my life back” has been a recurring and important theme. It’s an umbrella-like phrase that can cover just about every recovery goal significant to me, my caregivers, my therapists and doctors, and even our extended friend-family-church community. But the more I think about it, the more I find that phrase falling short of what I think we all mean to say.

It’s true…my life before December 3rd, 2016, was extremely rich and varied: an artistic and demanding musical upbringing culminating in two years at a conservatory in New York, three years in the health sciences (including research projects presented at the national and international level), traveling around the country with Ivan as part of a choir and orchestra, and through it all the blessings and challenges of growing up as a pastor’s kid. Each of those experiences shaped a unique piece of the adult puzzle that is me, and I wouldn’t trade any one of them for the world.

But working hard to “get my life back” implies that I want to go back to the way things used to be, and honestly…I don’t want that at all. You see, I’m not even remotely close to the person I was one year ago. I know myself differently, I know my family differently, I know Ivan far differently, and I think I know God “most differently” of all. And all those “differently’s” are very good. So good that I wouldn’t risk losing even one of them for anything. Obviously, I haven’t exactly enjoyed many parts of this year, and it saddens me to know that my struggles affect way more people than just me most days. BUT this is what it took to get us to where God has placed us now… and at least on my end, it has been worth it. So if “getting my life back” means going back to the old me, the way I was eleven months ago, I think I’ll pass.

Instead, the phrase I feel expresses our future hopes best is “building a better life”.  While I want to honor all the significant aspects of my first 23 years, I have an equal desire to treasure and foster the new knowledge and sensitivities God has been cultivating in me, Ivan, and the rest of my family over the past year. I sincerely hope the near future will include continued physical, mental, and emotional healing..for example, I would like to be able to play my violin again. But regardless of what the end of the story is for me, Ivan, my parents, Anna, or anyone else…I’m glad that we can’t “get our lives back” exactly as they were before. I’m proud of the people I’m watching God transform Ivan and the rest of my family (and hopefully me!) into. And I’m absolutely certain that the new life we’re building will be better than the old one, in all the ways that matter most.

Ivan: Hi everyone! Long time no see 🙂 Just wanted to give a quick update on Grace…last week we saw her neurologist and did a second EEG (the first one was back in March). What precipitated this was that recently Grace developed symptoms which her therapists felt like resembled seizures. These symptoms had also started to prevent Grace from doing a lot of the things she’d wanted to keep doing, like visit with people and go to church, Peet’s, etc. Surprisingly, the EEG came back normal. But the neurologist said that with the type of injury Grace’s brain sustained, seizures could be happening which wouldn’t show up on the EEG, and given the symptoms we described, he concluded that these “episodes” were, indeed, seizures.

While no one wants to be diagnosed with seizures, in a way it’s good that now we can at least pinpoint and address what’s been going on. (Before, we thought some of these symptoms resulted from TBI…hence the T-rex arms post.) Grace had been on a light dose seizure medication before, as a preventative measure, because people with brain injuries/strokes can develop seizure disorders. After our visit last week, her neurologist decided to double the dosage and keep monitoring her. It can take up to three weeks for the new effects to kick in, but we’ve already noted some encouraging changes!

That being said, unfortunately this doesn’t mean that we’re completely out of the woods yet…we still have some limitations in terms of visiting with people and going out in public, but hopefully we’re one step closer to regaining a normal level of activity.

Also, kittens make great at-home therapists. Grace and I are thankful for our Daisy Mae’s hard work every day, 24/7!

Also also, Valley Christian Schools is an amazing place to work and I’m so grateful that God has opened the door for me to teach there!

Also also also, you all are amazing!! We still feel like we’re walking uphill with a giant burden on our backs, but you all help make the burden feel lighter! Thank you all and God bless! 🙂

A few nights ago, Ivan and I spent some time pondering a puzzle: If we had to streamline all of our experiences and struggles over the past year into one 5-minute conversation with a stranger, what would we share as the most important lesson God taught us?  We both came up with separate answers, but I wanted to share mine with you here, especially in light of the stream of tragedies that have been in the news recently.

Most of our “accident” conversations (online, in person, with friends, family, strangers, and even each other) tend to circle around a recurring theme: before vs after…gains vs losses. I learned to walk, but I lost sensation in my left hand and other areas. I’ve relearned a lot of household tasks and personal care, but I can’t drive or go to the store. Those are two examples, but you can imagine how the comparisons could multiply endlessly! And not just for us…anyone who has lost anything could theoretically spend their post-trauma life in the same analytical cycle.

However, I realize that I’ve focused only on what I was good at before, not what I needed to improve on. I had musical talent and training, a strong work ethic, academic prowess, and a competitive edge. Those all sound like really good things, right? Except that they sometimes tempted me to be mediocre at people, at enjoying God’s biggest priority – community – unreservedly. True, I did squeeze in friends and social time and serve musically at our church. But I was quick to shy away from the inconvenient, the labor-intensive, the messy side of relationships…basically anything that posed a serious threat to my goals or my expertly time-managed week.

Ironically, community is the one thing we could not have survived this experience without. Do people spend entire lifetimes in wheelchairs? Absolutely. As much as it would have been tragic, we could have “made it” without my walking again. Do people lead successful lives without a limb? Sure. So even if I never feel my hand again, at least I have two hands. Do families cope with caring for a loved one who survives brain trauma  but is left with permanent and severe cognitive deficits? Unfortunately, yes. My point in this list is, that even if we were never granted any of the answered prayers we have received, technically we could have “made it” in some fashion.

BUT, how could my family have stayed with  me at the hospital 24/7 without the sacrifice and love of friends that brought food, blankets, and sometimes even clothes to help out? What about the sacrifice of my Dad’s church (Hillside) to let him spend much of the peak Christmas season hundreds of miles away from them? Or the church that Ivan worked at, for that matter? I couldn’t have gotten into the acute rehab hospital without the kind intercession of another friend, since technically I wasn’t strong enough to meet their physical qualifications. And when I went home, what about the messages, cards, phone calls, and visits from friends that sped the months along although I couldn’t really leave the house? Or the prayers, messages, and gifts from people I’d never even met. My mom lived apart from my dad for 5 months just to take care of me. Ivan would not have even known that Valley Christian Schools existed, apart from the Hillside community…which, by the way, we still hadn’t met in person. And once we did move up north, I would still have been relatively isolated except for kind church members who took the initiative to reach out and visit someone they had never even met in person.

If I wanted to be exhaustive, I could probably write a book just about all the details of the relational sacrifices that helped us make it this far, but my abridged point is this: we couldn’t have survived without being flooded with the very thing I was not great at before the accident. People were making inconvenient, painful, time-consuming, uncomfortable, costly decisions to benefit us every single day…. and that, even more than healing, is what propelled us to where we are now. We would not be enjoying a beautiful new life if we weren’t surrounded and supported by a community of Christ followers.

People, community. That was what I was not gifted at before the accident, but it has turned into the “elephant in the room” of my recovery. An elephant that I really needed to discover and name for myself. An elephant that God didn’t make just for me, but for everyone who has been thrown into a period of devastation. And an elephant that I pray I can spend the rest of my life growing more skillfully invested in.

There’s so much emotion attached to this post that it’s taken me a few days to even try writing it, but here we go. It is my privilege to introduce you all to “One Day”, a song based on our accident experience.

Late last fall, we were blessed to start getting to know the Redman family. You may know Matt Redman as the author of Christian worship songs like “10,000 Reasons”, “Blessed Be Your Name”, and “Heart of Worship”, to name a few. Matt and his wife Beth found out about my accident via Ivan in early January. Throughout the winter and spring, they spent some really sweet time getting to know both of us and our perspective about what we faced every day. As probably the busiest family I know, I was amazed at their consistent kindness, other-orientedness, and willingness to spend time with us on a regular basis.

During that time, Matt was working on recording his next album, Glory Song. At one of the final visits before our move, he showed us a demo version of “One Day” (one of the songs that he would include on the record), and explained that it was based on what they were watching us walk through: the unanswered question “why?”, the lack of justice or closure, and the unknown of how much, when, or if my total healing would take place.

What makes this song even more special to me, though, is two additional qualities: 1) the steadfast reminder of our constant hope of heaven, and that everything will be made new there; and 2) that the song’s final version is constructed in such a way that it speaks to all kinds of pain and brokenness, not just ours.

Glory Song  was released this past Friday, and I hope the track “One Day” will minister to you all as much as it has to us!

Also, for those of you who are interested in learning more about the album, feel free to watch a live interview with Matt and Beth here. They spend some time talking about the writing of “One Day” and the story behind it at about 28:50, then end with a live performance of the song. 🙂

It’s been a while since we talked about my hands (funny how that word has gone from singular to plural in the past several updates!), and today ended up being a great reminder to give y’all a status update!

Right hand: Ivan wrote about it here in back in July,  but here’s a quick refresher. I started having severe right hand pain back in March, diagnosed as DeQuervain’s tenosynovitis. Most likely, my hand was injured in the original December accident but went unnoticed, and then 3 months of being non-wieghtbearing (i.e. I had to lift my full body weight with my hands and arms every single time I needed to move) didn’t give it a chance to rest, let alone heal. We’ve spent the past few months experimenting with therapy, hand braces, and Cortisone injections to the injured tendon (ouch!!!), but by the end of July it looked like none of the above was working and we set a surgery date for September 21st. Well, as you probably noticed, it’s a few days past September 21st…and I haven’t had surgery yet. Personally, I had resigned myself to the procedure back in July, but it looks like God might have another idea now. On the human level, this is  thanks to my tireless occupational therapist who believed that the recovery process (6 weeks of not using my right hand) would be more harmful than helpful, given my left-handed deficits, and kept trying everything she could to promote healing even after we had scheduled the procedure. Another giant “thank you” goes to my precious Ivan, who has kept up with our more physically taxing chores even after he started working, just to make sure my hand had the maximum opportunity to rest and heal. Today I had a re-evaluation with the surgeon, and am delighted to announce that the surgery has been CANCELED! 🙂 Once again, thanks also to everyone who’s been praying specifically for this issue. It’s amazing how God can choose to surprise us!

Left hand: My left hand journey has been more tranquil, compared to the saga above. No, I still can’t feel it. But I CAN do lots of things with it (type, play piano, do basic chores, open medicine bottles, just to name a few). I can also go days without even pausing to dwell on the fact that I can’t feel it. On an even deeper psychological level, I’ve stopped equating a satisfying recovery with getting my sensation back, which gives me far more opportunities to rejoice as I achieve therapy goals and grow more independent again. Side note – I’ve actually forgotten what it was like to be able to feel with that hand. This made seem sad at first glance, but I actually view it as a bizarre but nevertheless useful gift. A gift that allows me to live with a thankful heart in the present and enjoy my “new normal” abilities without moping over how I remember things used to feel.

This season of hand issues has been one of frustration and discouragement at first, then patience…and learning to ask for lots of help throughout (one of the things I’ve traditionally been terrible at!) These are lessons I’ve needed to learn, and still need to practice daily. And yes, I’d love to have been “naturally humble” enough to learn them an easier way, without the hand drama. But as September draws to a close, I’m thankful that God chose the means He saw as best to teach me. I’m thankful that my left hand is now pretty close to the level therapists define as “functional”, even if I can’t feel it. and I’m absolutely thankful to be typing this on my own, without my right hand being immobilized in a post-op splint. God is good!

Grace: Yesterday marked halfway through the month of September.  Aside from the fact that this time of year sends many of us “back to school” vibes  and also means I’m only six months away from being 25 (off-topic, I know), there is one more thing September was supposed to have been for us this year. It struck me the other day as I was finishing up physical therapy practice that September was predicted to be the month that I started  learning how to walk.

Those of you who have been with us for a while may remember this post from early February, where I recounted the sobering pronouncement from our orthopedic appointment that it would most likely take me 6 months to a year to learn how to walk, and one to two years to learn how to walk well. For those who aren’t great at math, that was only SEVEN months ago. Seven. Currently I walk two miles every day on a treadmill as part of my at-home physical therapy homework, and I don’t even use a cane. If you saw me walking down the street, I would look completely normal.

Can we all just take that in for a moment??

It’s startlingly easy for Ivan and me to get caught up in the needs and challenges of everyday life (usually brain-related, and still very real, to be sure). And our healing journey is far from finished. But it shocked me that I was looking a giant miracle right in the eyes, and almost missed it.

How did I exceed predictions by such a giant margin?? It would be flattering to credit myself with intrinsic personal awesomeness, or at least spout off a eulogy for therapists.  (I’ll give you a hint, we can eliminate the ” personal awesomeness” hypothesis right off the bat! 😉 )

While I have had some phenomenal therapists, and can’t thank them enough for what they’ve contributed, I think the true reason for this real-life miracle lies James 5:16: “The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.” From the very day of the accident, we have been covered in prayer from more people than we could ever count or thank properly. And this prayer has accomplished far more than we could have dreamed of…far faster than we could have dreamed of.

As always, the glory goes first to God who is the worker of these marvelous developments. But I want to use this post to thank YOU, who have been tirelessly using prayer to fight for and with us all these months. Your urgent requests have produced some beyond-powerful effects.

Ivan: I just had to chime in…first of all, praise God! All good things (in fact, all things) come from Him and are used by Him ultimately for His glory and the good of His children. Second of all, thank you all for praying for us so faithfully! We can’t thank you all enough.

Third of all, I want to give a shout out to my wife…for working so incredibly hard these past months! One of the truths we have seen firsthand in our lives and in the lives of those who live within the “hospital sphere” of physical, mental, and emotional recovery is that a patient’s attitude toward his/her own recovery plays a central role in the recovery’s actual outcome. To put it another way, those who lose hope or don’t try will actually recover less than those who believe the best and give their all in order to get better. Now, this is not a guarantee, but it is an observation that many have seen borne out in the lives of actual patients.

Grace is one of the hardest workers I have ever known. This accident put her in a position where she has to battle every day to regain not only physical but also mental and emotional wholeness. She fights on multiple fronts. On the physical front, this means following a detailed daily regimen of exercise. Side note–most of us probably view exercise as “a good thing to do,” whether we actually end up doing it or not; but in the context of a person who’s had two strokes and two broken knees (among other things), it becomes much more than just a “good choice”; it becomes part of her battle for wholeness.

So I just wanted to “officially” congratulate my wife for putting so much time and effort, consistently, every day, to work hard toward her recovery. We’ve already seen some of the results of your hard work, Grace! I’m sure that God is pleased with your effort and attitude, and is using it as part of His sovereign, good, and loving plan for you. We are all so proud of you! 🙂

It is our delight to announce to you the newest chapter in my therapy journey: Daisy Mae! Her story is lengthier than you might expect for such a tiny ball of cuteness, so grab your favorite cat (or dog?), and settle in.

Back in September 2016, Ivan let me foster and adopt a tiny feral kitten from the Humane Society in Riverside. Feral kittens need extra attention and playtime since they still have a lot of wild instincts (like biting and scratching) to work through, so when the accident happened in December it quickly became clear that Franz needed a different temporary housing arrangement. Everyone was spending all their waking hours at the hospital, and that level of solitude would have been enough to drive even a “normal” kitty a little frantic. So  a super kind friend of ours stepped in and took Franz (craziness included) to live with her family and their two big kitties. As the spring months passed by, we kept running into medical barriers to prevent us from taking him back. Initially it was factors like my compromised immune system and high blood thinner dosages, then the safety hazards of kitten versus wheelchair , and finally the uncertain transitional period where I was learning to walk on my own but wasn’t steady enough to navigate around anything small on the floor (much less small and moving). By this time we knew we were most likely heading for San Jose at the end of May, and had no idea what our final housing situation would be – or if it would be cat friendly. At this pivotal moment, Franz’s foster mama once again stepped in and saved the day by offering to keep him permanently. This brought so much happiness and joy to my heart because 1) I HATED the idea of sending him back to the pound or giving him away to a stranger and 2) I knew Franz would be super safe and happy with his cat friends and human family that he’d been living with for the past 6 months. Also, there was a good chance he wouldn’t remember me after that length of time anyway  and would be upset by leaving his foster family that he’d bonded with.

So, backstory complete, we fast forward to the end of July, when one of my therapists asked about the possibility of my getting a pet. She believed the “therapy pet” would help me in a lot of ways: 1) it would keep me company during the extended “alone time” I was starting to face with Ivan back at work and my parents resuming their normal church activities 2) it would provide another layer of responsibility and challenge for me to handle as I continue taking over my old wife/homemaker responsibilities and 3) it would add a new level of stimulation for my brain to begin accepting as “normal” at home.

And providentially, that very same week I got to meet little Daisy. She and her brothers were being fostered by a family at Hillside, and her cuteness melted my heart at first sight. Reassured that she had a quiet, sweet disposition and was already being loved on and trained by her foster family and their other pets, Ivan approved Daisy as my new “therapy cat.” We waited another month till she and her brothers were old enough to live  alone  in their permanent homes, and she joined us this past Saturday. So far she is turning out to be the perfect blend of cuddly naps and gentle play (I am still on blood thinner, so absence of biting is important!), and she presides over my daily home therapy practice with interest but sans interference. Daisy and I also both sleep a lot, so you might say it’s a match made in cat heaven! Giving thanks for great things from this little cutie ❤