One year ago today I kissed Lane goodbye as he was wheeled onto an ambulance for the last time…we were LEAVING  the Cleveland St. John ICU and headed to MICHIGAN! At that point we still had no idea if or when he would talk, move, or what his level of cognitive function would be. Praising God for all that has taken place this past year!! Below is a portion of my journal entry to Lane that day.

“It’s been 20 days since our accident and just over 2 hours ago I waved goodbye to you on your ambulance back to Michigan! Praising God and rejoicing in His hand for where He’s brought you since the most frightening night of my life as they were unsure you’d live through brain surgery. Each day since has been a walk of faith for me as I’ve wept and struggled with why this would happen to us, but God has faithfully held me, strengthened me, and given me peace as I’ve walked each moment. Yesterday was a huge milestone as you laughed, smiled, and cried for the first time. You laughed at one of your techs, Rosita as she sang to you and called you ‘her chalupa:)’ Your expression of emotion is a beautiful gift to me. How I long to hear your voice. The trach will hopefully be coming out soon! “

Remembering and rejoicing today,

-e

Lane had a great week of therapy this past week, it had been awhile since he had a full week stretch with Christmas and New Year’s. We are SO grateful for the break (emotionally and physically) we were able to have though!

Over this weekend we spent time with Lane’s aunt, uncle, and cousin from Nebraska, which was a ton of fun. His Aunt Eve was the one that ran the 40 mile run on her 40th birthday for Lane’s continued rehab support . What a wonderful blessing! Last night we also had fun going to “Peter Pan” with some of my family, a production done by Grand Rapids HPA (the homeschool drama group that my sister and brother had been in throughout highschool). Since we were in GR this morning we decided to go to Calvary church, which is conveniently down the road from Hope. We were greatly challenged and encouraged with the worship and message from 1 Peter 3. An extra fun perk was running into old friends (the Malone’s) and missionaries from FBC in Saint John’s (the Johnsons)!

We are wishing we had about 3 more days to add to this weekend (they are never long enough!!) but are excited to take on another week. A couple prayer points to please keep in mind–

1. Diligence for the road that’s before us today and trust in God’s good, perfect plan in the days to come.

2. Lane’s therapies

3. Emily’s job/travel safeties

4. This Friday Lane will have an Intrathecal Baclofen pump trial (injection) to see if the baclofen pump is something that will be of assistance with his increased tone and spasticity. If he reacts positively to this injection (show decreased spasticity that day), we’ll go ahead with the pump whenever they can get him in (in a month or so). We are praying he will be able to have it placed, as all his therapists are thinking it will assist with his progression in therapies (at least not having to fight tone to actively move). **The actual ITB pump is a surgically implanted programmable pump that goes directly into the intrathecal space around the spinal cord.

Thank you for praying, always. Have a wonderful week,

-l&e

Lane and I have been wanting to make the switch from Facebook to more of a blog for awhile now. Why you may ask? Primarily because don’t want people to have to have a Facebook account  in order to receive updates, but we’re also tired of all the notifications etc that goes along with every post. So this is where we’ll be posting any updates from now on, however often (or not so often:) that may be. I’ll post it on our FB page but please pass it on to those you may know who may be interested in continuing to hear from/ pray for us. We won’t be deleting the FB page for awhile because I want to compile all the posts into a journal eventually.

Thank you for your continued prayer, encouragement, and support as we take on this road one moment at a time.

 Looking to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith,

lane and emily