Life is what you make of it.

What is new in the world? More importantly, what is new for my mom? 

A whole lot.

If for some odd reason you were unaware, the biggest dilemma to date is the constant fight with the insurance company and hospitals. Luckily, it's all going to work out, but it is a scary reality. Does it seem just to receive bills upon bills from physical therapy that the insurance company keeps approving but somehow we are getting billed huge sums of money? Scary, but like I said, it will all work out. 

In bigger news, my mom is fantastic. She made a quick trip to the midwest to begin an Aphasia program. It was a nice get away for her to go with Michelle and visit with some family and get the program started. The program was started for deaf people and has transformed into a way of helping many people recover from strokes. It is somewhat of a study, but it truly seems like it has helped in the short time she has done it. What my mom does every day is use a computer with a headset and a video camera. The computer connects with the headquarters in Chicago and as words in a phrase begin to become highlighted, the face on the screen moves it's lips and she hears the words being spoken on the headset. It is hard at first to read the words out loud. My mom is a genius reader but the biggest issue for her that I learned is being able to read correctly out loud. As she continues to fight and repeat the phrase, she eventually reads it correctly and moves on. This, I believe, can help immensely with the re-wiring of her brain that had been lost. It is not going to be easy, but I gage that the program can be influential for her growth and success. 

Hopefully she will continue to flourish. We shall see. 

In the meantime, I am thinking when she is done with this program, I am going to work on fundraising for a new computer for my mom. Hers is very old, unreliable, shuts down, slow, barely charges, and is hard to read the screen. But thats later down the line. Just thought it would be a good start to put it out there for the world. 

As for the rest of the family, we are doing great. Slowly but surely everything is getting better. All of us kids are busy working in school and keeping to push through. Thanks for all of your support for my mom and our whole family. I shall write again when there is more news. 

Love, Ems