Thursday January 19, 2006

Thursday January 19, 2006 Zack has to do homework now so I don’t get as much access to the computer. Leslie (speech) and Jose (occupational therapy) both have started sending Zack home with work to do in preparation for his return to school. He has to read and highlight the important facts of the article. Then he has to write it down as notes and sometimes type those notes into the laptop. Even Dr. Peri (psychologist) gives him copies of the website to read and highlight for discussion at their next session. Since he hasn’t been doing homework since he got out of school last summer it is a real challenge for him to stay focused after being in therapy all day. He didn’t think it was fair that everyone else was out of school on Monday for Martin Luther King Day and he still had to go to “school”. Kyle and Dylan were even questioning me on why Zack had to go on a holiday. Scott picks him up at 3:00 and they go golfing. When he gets home I ask him if he wants to play cards and he says he has to do his homework first. An hour later he comes in to show me the passages he has highlighted and pages of notes he handwrote. He is proud of himself but now he is ready to play cards. I enjoy our card games so much because we can talk about his return to school or whatever is on his mind. It is so refreshing to have a teenager who is actually interested in your opinion. Zack truly believes I know what I am talking about now and trust that I will advise him correctly (I only wish some of that would rub off on Dylan). On Tuesday I pick the kids up from Christian Academy (CAL) and when I get home we tell Zack about tonight’s girl’s varsity basketball game against Mercy. His friend Brooke plays for CAL so after dinner Zack, Dylan, Kyle, her friend Sarah and I drive to Mercy for the game. We have only been in the car 5 minutes when Zack turns the radio down and asks me what time we will get home. He says he really has a lot of homework and needs to get home right after the game to get started. I remind him that he should have told me before we left home about his homework because maybe he shouldn’t have come but he promises me he can get it all done after the game. Since it was an away game (and the boy’s varsity team was playing Trinity at home) none of his friends were there so I got the privilege of sitting with Zack. It had started to snow lightly as we arrived at the game and when we left it was snowing quite hard. Of course the kids were excited saying that there would not be school tomorrow and Zack warned me that if they were out of school he was not going wither. I told him Frazier didn’t really have “snow days” and he reminded me that it would be much more dangerous driving to Frazier since it was a lot farther from home, than it would be driving to CAL. When we got home he had to start on his homework which was several pages from Leslie and more from Jose. After about an hour he comes to tell me he is tired and needs to go to bed. He says he probably won’t have school tomorrow because of the snow so he didn’t need to do all of his homework, but just in case I should wake him early to finish it. He told me to get up first and see if school was closed. Wednesday morning I start the coffee and turn on the news. School is open and I wake Zack at 6:30. He gets up and heads to the office before he even eats breakfast. I am impressed with his determination. When he knows it is important he wants to do his best and that is why I think he will succeed at school. His short term memory is still not good so school will be very difficult, he will need lots of help but he has a great attitude and a strong belief that he can do it. He also is ready to prove his motto “I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength”. We don’t know what the future holds, what exactly school will be like for Zack but we do know that God will not abandon us now. He is listening to the prayers of many faithful believers who continue to lift Zack up. I had a meeting at Southeast Christian Church Wednesday afternoon and decide to check to see if the results of the Easter Pageant auditions are posted. There is Zack’s name as Roman Soldier (along with Scott). When I pick Zack up I hand him his envelop with his rehearsal schedule and other information. I tell him he is a Roman soldier but he has no speaking lines and he says that’s probably good. I tell him he will have to practice making a stern Roman face and he asked me what is “stern” (this is aphasia). I explain that he has to make a sort of mad looking face and he tries to do it without smiling. He will need a lot of practice or they will call him the happy Roman soldier.
Thursday Scott picks him up from Frazier and they go bowling. Scott wins the 1st game but Zack wins the 2nd. On the 3rd game Zack is up by 13 pins in the 9th frame and gets a little cocky and misses his spare. Scott warned him never to leave an open door for the competition and proceeds to bowl three strikes in a row to win the game. Zack learns a valuable lesson but also impresses his Dad because he tells him to always play his best. If he wins he wants to know it is because he was better, not because his Dad was taking it easy on him. When I get home from work it is just Zack and I (the girls are with friends, Dylan is at a middle school basketball game and Scott is at a meeting at church). I fix Zack a quick dinner and after changing clothes ask him if he is ready to play cards. He tells me he has to do his homework first. Our new normal seems much more like everyone else’s. It wasn’t long ago that Zack couldn’t read or write and now he is diligently focused on doing homework. It was less than 4 months ago that I spent all my time at Frazier Rehab. My world consisted of therapist, doctors, my little notebook full of endless documentation of medicine and procedures, late night drives home and little sleep. Now I look back on those times rather fondly. Scott says I was very privileged to get to witness Zack coming back to life. He had the much more thankless job of keeping the family held together at home. Many nights he was on the deck with both girls on his lap crying that they missed their Mom and explaining to Dylan that Zack needed me more right now. After they were in bed he would sit on the deck with a constant puddle of tears on the ground in front of him. He says at those times he would think of Ross Brodfuehrer who lost his teenage son in a car accident years ago. He knew that Ross would give anything to be where he was now, with his son alive even if his future was uncertain, and that would give him the strength to keep going. He would look at the sky, pray and cry and remembers vividly watching the Big Dipper go from low to high in the sky as the weeks went by. This is where I would find him when I came home from Frazier at 12:00 or 1:00 am. I am so thankful that now we are together again as a family. I am reminded of how hard we tried to get Zack approved to be sent to the Centre for Neuro Skills in Dallas. How blessed we are that God was in control and knew how much better Zack would do surrounded by his family and friends. He placed the right people (Jude Thompson with Anthem), closed doors and opened others and “lit the path” for Zack’s recovery. I doubt if Zack had been hundreds of miles away from us, no matter how good the facility was, that he would be doing as well and be as happy as he is now. You could say that we learned the hard way how to listen for God’s direction. But in God’s perfect plan it was the only way. It was not a test of our faith. It was an example of how God molds us into better servants. His strength is made perfect when we are weak. His glory is magnified when we trust Him with fervent prayers. Our belief that He hears our prayers and is in control is the best witness for an unbelieving world. We ask that you continue to bear with us in prayer for Zack’s complete recovery to give glory to God. Do you believe? Are you confident in His power? Shout it out!