It is getting hard to keep up with Darryl’s milestones! Even his physio is struggling to adjust the programme to keep pace. Each day he learns, or re-masters is probably more appropriate, a former function. To name a few, he can now turn his head left and right, up and down. He can poke his tongue out and to the left of his mouth and the right. He scrubs his teeth with great finesse and can use a torch to pinpoint photos, and any item we name that is on the wall on the opposite side of his room.
Up at the gym he has been been rolling onto his side, mostly under his own ’steam’. Actually that is probably a very appropriate term to use because his own ’steam’ is working very well as I found out this morning when stretching his thighs up toward his chest. It was a special moment, not because I was in the firing line, but because when I responded with a suficient degree of repugnance, Darryl smirked – the first time I have seen him smile in 8 weeks. I guess it was worth being ’steamed’ to see that. I think!
He has been pushing himself up to a seated position from lying on his side. He has been kicking a balloon with his left leg and is now starting to get a tiny bit of movement in his right leg. He pulls his shirt on and off and helps pull his shorts up. He washes as much as he can reach when he’s in the shower (that is a bath). He even takes off his rugby head gear – identically to how he has done it for years. Each day he gets something, or lots of things back. As Bill Thurston keeps reminding me, he is putting the pieces of the puzzle back together. And much like a jigsaw puzzle, when you get to a tipping point in that the picture starts to make sense and the amount of pieces left makes it easier to see ‘what goes where’ , it all starts to happen with more deliberate purpose and the process develops a life of it’s own.
I’m not sure that we are anywhere close to that yet, but the ‘carrying away of stones’ is certainly making some serious holes in the mountain to be moved!
Yesterday brought a classic Kodak moment when the speech therapist was working with him and wanting to illicit a smile. This is difficult because the tapestry of facial muscles are still in the process of waking up as the nerves start to fire again. Anyway the therapist ended up using her fingers to push the corners of Darryl’s mouth up to form a smile. Having done this a couple of times she asked Darryl to try and smile, to which Darryl sat for a few seconds, emotionless.
What happened next had us in hysterics. Darryl, obviously tiring of not getting his face to work, brings his hand to his mouth and skillfully using his thumb on one side and forefinger on the other forces the corners of his mouth up into a smile and then turns his head to face the therapist. It was priceless! And so Darryl. If I can’t do it one way, I’ll find another.
Darryl, you may have been knocked down, literally as well as figuratively, but your spirit, courage and strength have never waivered and at all times remained intact. In many ways, it is those qualities that have seen you survive this most foul hand of fate. What was fear and anguish beyond my wildest nightmares is now giving way to the seeds of recovery and a new sense of future. There is nothing surer than all our lives have changed forever as a result of this.
Lets ensure that the change is like that of a forest felled by fire in that new growth flourishes with the passing of the old. That new trees will now stand taller and stronger than what their predecessors did. In nature we learn that it often takes tragedy for real growth to occur and the ashes of destruction are the catalyst for change rather than the remnants of loss. And never forget, that the mightiest oak tree grows from the tiniest of acorns.
Keep passing the test of you Darryl.
Dad
Recent Comments