From the website:
Dear friends and family,
It is hard to believe that a year and 5 months has past since Antonia’s accident. We have watched God do many amazing things from raising her up from the coma to eating solid foods to starting to talk and much more. Words cannot express the love and gratitude we have for all of you who have continued to pray for her and for our family throughout this time.
We are still seeking a solution for appropriate and effective medications for Antonia. She still suffers from much confusion, anger, sleeplessness, and disorientation due to her brain injury. There are several different medications that can help with these symptoms but finding a suitable one and administering the correct dosage has proven to be quite a challenge. We continue to try different things and have seen some temporary improvements. Ultimately, we need to find the particular one that she will respond to favorably and continue to do so. Please pray that Father would give her more stable moods, and if it is through the medications that it would happen soon, so Antonia would be more peaceful, content and aware. Please pray that He would sustain us as we seek to care for her needs and teach us daily to trust and wait on Him.
We have seen some small improvements with her short term memory particularly in the realm of jokes. The neurological chiropractor that has been treating her from the beginning has recommended telling her jokes and asking her later if she remembers the punch line and she has. Also, she is remembering other small things that she wouldn’t have remembered a few months ago.
We recently purchased a brace for her left leg (as she still does not have use of this side of her body) and with it in place she held onto the side of her bed and stood for several minutes. With help and future therapy, it is our prayer that she will gain greater balance and learn how to pivot her left hip and leg in such a way as to begin to walk with the brace on. Please continue to pray that God will heal the area of her brain that will restore the use of her left side.
Another area of progress is that her feeding/peg tube has been removed (actually she removed it herself by pulling it out). It was providentially good timing because she was at the point where she could manage taking everything that is necessary by mouth. We still have to feed her because her right arm (the only one she has use of) still is calcified at the elbow and cannot be bent enough to reach her mouth. Again, we are still considering doing the surgery to possibly have this corrected, but with her unstable moods it could actually set us further back if she did not tolerate all therapy that would need to be done.
Blessings on you all,
Gina (on behalf of Dean)
poikilos 