Anne

Good progress…

Anne has made good progress since starting school in January.

She has her own walker that she uses with the PT at school. Anne started at the beginning of the month walking 75 ft. and has increased her distance to 150ft.

Anne has had problems keeping her legs straight when she walks. She “scissors” her legs – or crosses them over each other as she walks. Lately, her scissoring has decreased, and she is walking with a more normal gait.

Anne couldn’t count very well when she started school, but now she can easily count to 20.

Her oral fixation is improving slightly. A few weekends ago, our family was eating at a restaurant with close friends. At this restaurant, they give the kids a huge bucket of crayons and paper. I sat, waiting for Anne to pick up a fistful of crayons and drop them on the floor or throw them across the table, and then eat the rest of them! But she didn’t. She picked up one crayon, held it with the correct tripod grasp, scribbled and placed the crayon back in the bucket. She colored with lots of different crayons, always putting them back in the bucket, and only one crayon went in her mouth! We were thrilled!

She’s slowly getting better at tracing her letters with her right index finger. She can trace T, L and E easily and is starting to do well at A, N and W.

Anne is continuing to gain more self awareness. She is often angry and frustrated, especially at night. She talks about how she is angry at God for letting the car crash happen. She also gets angry at me when I have to dress her, brush her hair or help her go to the bathroom.

She has been kinder to Kate lately, showing her affection and telling her, “I love you Kate!”. She continues to play well with canon. Their imaginary worlds and games are getting more complicated as Anne makes more cognitive gains.

Her language skills continue to improve. Her sentence structure is excellent, and she corrects our grammar at every opportunity. Her memory for song lyrics is unusually astute. Today she said to me while I was singing, “No mommy. It’s ‘took’ not ‘takes.'” Seriously?!

Her private OT sessions are very challenging for Anne. They are working her left hand very hard. It takes so much effort for her to even try to move her left arm or squeeze her left hand. She usually leaves those sessions exhausted…

In the hospital, I would tell her that God was helping her to get better every day. Anne would always ask, “even today?” And I would respond, “Yes, Anne. Even today.”

I still tell her that God is helping her to get better and better every day. And she still asks, “even today?” And I say… “Yes Anne. Especially today.”

Trying to trust God with my little girl… -kathryn

Unknown…

I feel like that word describes most of my life right now.

Will Anne ever walk again? Unknown
Will Anne ever NOT need diapers? Unknown
Will Anne ever progress past Kindergarten material? Unknown
Where will Canon and Kate go to school next year? Unknown
Will Anne grow out of her temper-tantrum phase? Unknown
How will God provide for all of our needs? Unknown

I could go on and on and on. I’ve never felt so out of control in my whole life.

From a wide angle perspective, that’s a good place to be… broken and dependent on God’s perfect provision. But from a narrow, nitty-gritty perspective – well, lots of colorful adjectives come to mind, but I’ll just say… it’s hard.

Bottomline… I’m struggling with trust. Sweet Canon was weeping over Anne the other day, and I go into my speech about how we are in a dark tunnel, and it’s a hard place to be, but the tunnel WILL END, and God is with us in the tunnel. And Canon just cried, “But I don’t feel Him in the tunnel. Where is He?” And I just held him tight and said nothing, because I’ve been feeling the same way.

Truth vs. feelings… Do we trust in the staff of God’s word? I will never leave you or forsake you… I am with you always. I delight over you. Have I not commanded you…be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? I lift my eyes up to the hills. Where does my help come from? My help comes from You, maker of heaven and earth.

Thank you to everyone I see that tells me that you follow us on Caring Bridge. It’s a reminder to me that we are not alone on this journey, but we have myriads of God’s people praying for us.

Would you please pray for the following:

  1. That there would be an end to diapers. That Anne would learn to use the potty again.
  2. That Anne would gain endurance and not get SO tired and difficult in the evenings.
  3. That Anne’s attention and impulsivity would continue to improve.
  4. That Anne’s desire to break the rules would wane, and her desire to obey and do what is best would improve.
  5. That Anne would sense God’s presence and know His love for her
  6. That God would give us wisdom for Canon & Kate’s schooling.

Finally, Anne has been talking alot about what she wants to be when she grows up. Amazingly, her list of professions is the same as it was before the accident. She either wants to be a “cooker” or a “teacher.” Cooking and playing school were her favorite activities this time last year. In fact, the morning of the accident, Anne had taken over the entire kitchen creating one of her crazy concoctions. It was almost time to pick up Kate from pre-school, and I said, “Anne, we have to leave soon. Please clean up EVERYTHING…now.” And she obeyed immediately, with no complaints. Sweet, precious Anne. I’ve been praying lately, that she would grow up to be a teacher. I would love it, if others prayed that for Anne too :-)

Thank you! -kathryn

Glimmer of relief

We have struggled a little more lately with the amount of service required to raise little Anne. Sometimes we have just felt tired. We pray that Anne continues to grow and learn and sharpen because we want what is best for her. But selfishly we also ask God for some relief.

Then a tiny glimmer of relief comes in an unusual way to
me. The scene in our Honda van traveling around town: everyone singing loudly to Christian radio, with Kathryn teaching us to insert a few lyrics of our own to some well known songs. . . . Anne grinning ear to ear:

Brandon Heath’s “Wait and See”

There is hope for Anne yet
Because God won’t forget
All the plans He has for “me”
I have to wait and see …He’s not finished with Anne yet

Chris Tomlin’s “God of this city”

For greater things are yet to come,
And greater things are still to be done in our Annie-B
Greater things have yet to come
And greater things are still to be done in our Annie-B

I get a giant lump in my throat when I sing that Chris
Tomlin song with Annie-B inserted. God is so personal and close to give us these songs, to give us Kathryn who can ‘see’
to change these songs for Anne, to give little Anne back to us, and to give us the chance to wrestle with him as a family through this difficulty which molds our character a little more to His likeness.

-eric

Hippotherapy

1-20-2011

Anne had her first hippotherapy session today. (Hippo is greek for horse.)

Hippotherapy will help Anne’s balance, coordination and her ability to know where she is in space. When the horse moves, Anne has to use BOTH sides of her body to balance. I’m very thankful to have a hippotherapy clinic so close to our home.

I didn’t know how Anne would react to being on the horse… but she did GREAT! She wasn’t afraid and was genuinely excited. The therapy session definitely challenged her – especially when they turned Anne around so she was riding backwards on the horse. I look forward to seeing how she responds to more therapy sessions!

A child’s grief

Anne has started showing more signs of self awareness, and she’s also asking some difficult questions…

“I’m sad that i have a brain injury, dada.”
“Mama, I’m sad that i can’t walk.”
“Daddy, why did God let me get hurt in the accident?”

And Canon has begun to process his grief….

Weeping, Canon said, “I cant imagine Anne ever getting better. I can’t imagine her ever walking. I just want things to go back to the way they were before the accident. I want to go back to that day and tell you to go a different way, mommy.”

There are no easy answers for our 6 and 8 year old children. They reflect my own questions and grief. God in his goodness has met us in our grief and uncertainty. And he will continue to walk us through this tunnel to the end.

Please pray for us as we seek wisdom and comfort.
Thank you :-) -kathryn

Anne’s status quo

I’ve been thinking that I want to capture all the things that Anne can do now, so that I can look back next year and (hopefully) be encouraged by how far she’s come. I’ll probably add to this post over the next few days as more comes to mind…

So let’s get started:-)

PHYSICALLY Sit independently
Sit up from laying down by herself
Roll over and sit up
Scooch forward on her tummy using her right arm and knees Throw hard with her right hand
Stand up by herself for 1-5 seconds
Stand up holding on with right hand for balance for 1-2 minutes
Walk with moderate assistance stepping with the right leg better than the left, but the left is almost as strong as the right.
Using her body and shoulder, she can bend her left elbow to move her left hand up to her nose.
She can squeeze her left hand very weakly.
Her left arm is regaining movement from the shoulder down.

Balance is still Anne’s biggest obstacle to walking.

COGNITIVELY Her use of words is excellent, and this provides a unique insight into all of Anne’s thoughts. She says whatever she thinks. She is at so many different developmental levels- it’s all quite complicated.

We have seen an improvement in her oral fixation, but she still mouths objects like an infant. Emotionally, she acts like her former 2-3 year old self. She loves to break the rules; she gets angry easily; she can be mean to Kate and me, but she has nothing but adoration for Eric and Canon. Her attention and impulsivity have improved in subtle ways, but these are still huge obstacles for anne. She grabs my glasses, pulls my hair, throws food, drops her cup and fork on the floor. She uses bathroom talk inappropriately. But her conversation seems to be more in context – probably only making random, strange comments 30% of the time instead of ALL the time in the hospital. She is starting to play with toys more appropriately, like her dolls and educational ‘button-pushing’ toys.

Another way we’ve seen anne’s attention improve is her use of her iPad. Eric decided to buy Anne an iPad because the computer captured her attention, but she could not control the mouse. The iPad’s touch screen allows Anne to play preschool educational games independently. At first, she couldn’t control her hand to play the simplest game. But after only a month, she can turn the ipad on, unlock it, find and open the game she wants to play and play the game well. We are very encouraged by her ability to learn.

Anne knows all of her colors, letters & sounds, and numbers. Her impaired attention affects her ability to count objects and read simple words. She does recognize her name and the names of her siblings.

She can’t write letters yet. She has some pre-writing skills such as drawing straight lines and circles. Tracing is hard for Anne. She does play a writing game on the iPad. She can trace C and O by herself, and trace letters like T E F L if I help steady her hand.

If you’ve read this far, then you might be willing to pray for Anne tonight. I’m writing this post while sitting in Anne’s darkened room – waiting for her stomach virus to wake her up. Eric and I are taking turns on sick duty. Anne caught this virus from Kate, so I know it only lasts eight hours or so. Hopefully, by 3 or 4 am, Eric, Anne and I will have survived and be peacefully sleeping :-) Good night for now… Kathryn

Edit: Anne slept from 3am – 7am – and seems to be perfectly fine now!

Anne’s 1st day of school!

I really can’t imagine a better situation for Anne. She is part of a small group of students most of her day. She only stays half the day; she is getting loads of therapy from qualified therapists, and her teacher is excited by the challenges Anne brings to her classroom!

After a brief rest period at home, Anne had a speech therapy session this afternoon. I thought she might be overwhelmed and overtired from school, but she did GREAT! She was calm and focused. She was able to attend to tasks for a longer period, and she was able to do certain skills that she has never been able to do before.

But I think I was most encouraged by a phone call from a friend early this morning. She just called to say that she remembered that this was Anne’s first day of school, and that she had felt led to pray for us all morning. Her prayers reminded me that our family is never forgotten by Jesus – that He sees us and is interceding on our behalf.

Thank you to all of you who have prayed for Anne. We are most grateful!!!!

-kathryn

Looking back at 2010

Eric shared a verse with me tonight. It pretty much sums up our year…

2 Corinthians 4:16-18: So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

Eric said at Thanksgiving that he was thankful for this year. It is not what we would have chosen for Anne or for our family, but we’ve seen God deepen our dependence upon and love for Him through this ‘light and momentary affliction.’

We are grateful for God working out His purposes through us and for the love and prayer you all have given to us.

Here’s to a joy-filled 2011!

Love, Kathryn (for all the Jacksons)