Greetings from Austin Street

Happy Tuesday! The CT report on Bruce today was so good and encouraging. The swelling is going down well and the thrombosis is decreasing and several other things were improved. We are so very grateful. Thank you for your continued prayers. We are blessed with amazing prayer warriors who pray without ceasing and we are forever grateful. Please don’t stop because the next step in this journey is about to begin. Today when I arrived at Bruce’s room at Kindred there was a certificate stating that Bruce is preparing for graduation. In the next day or two Bruce will transfer to the Center for Neuro Skills in Irving, Texas. It is an amazing hospital that deals only in brain injury and treats the whole person with intensive PT, OT, Speech, Education and Counseling in the clinic. They have a large staff that takes care of their every need and works very hard to prepare the patients to return to the outside world with skills in place to live independently. The facility is very family friendly and encourages the families to be a part of the healing and retraining process. Bruce will live in a beautiful apartment a few miles from the clinic. We can sign him out for family outings such as church, movies, mall etc…We are so pleased with this facility. I will keep you posted and I know I ask each night, but please continue to pray as we enter this new phase of recovery. Thank you.

“Seek the LORD and His strength; seek His face evermore.”

Psalm 105: 4

I am learning when someone has a brain injury many things change and sometimes things have to change to accommodate the one who has suffered the injury. This is true in our physical house. I am having some work done in our bedroom and bathroom to better accommodate Bruce. Mostly it is creating wider spaces so that Bruce has plenty of room to move. His balance and walking have greatly improved and he is not bumping into things near as much as he was and his impulsiveness is decreasing. We are thankful. But as for me, I need to remove some furniture, pack a great many things away to be placed in storage, decide what trash is and what is treasure, and decide what to keep and what to send to Mission Arlington.  This is a mammoth task and I need to accomplish this task in just a little over a week so that the workers can come and rehab our room.

In order to accomplish this I must set priorities or I will not be able to get this enormous task accomplished. But before I can even begin I need to center myself in God’s will and strength so that I make good decisions  about what gets done and what does not. These are not just physically draining tasks, but emotionally draining too. God calls me to seek His face and will as I look at the possibilities before me and determine what is important. If I intentionally seek God’s face to stay focused I have to believe that I will be led to make the best use of my time and energy and hopefully will keep me from feeling anxious. A friend of mine once told me to ask God to stretch my time and when I pray for this God honors this and I am able to accomplish what is supposed to be accomplished. Please pray for and this part of the journey. God is good and love wins!

Take joy in the journey remembering that hope does not disappoint. Wear comfortable shoes, pray with a heart filled with gratitude, let us cast our cares upon the LORD and get some sleep. God is up all night anyway so there is no need for all of us to be awake. Love you all, Bruce and Gaylene