...the valley of death, I fear no evil for you are with me.
There are a handful of verses I recite daily and they help me through this season I'm in. Especially Psalms 23. I have been in deaths tight grip for sometime. It even almost took me home on a few separate occasions. But the Lord is with me and He is using me.
My testimony of tragedy and faith.
Just the other day I had Speech and OT.
Both of my therapists were so elated over my progression since last week.
With speech I am still working on making my words clearer by talking slower and louder and using emphasis.
We also worked on my swallowing.
She taught me a new way to swallow my drinks and food. It took a couple tries, but I got it!
To swallow I put my tongue on the back of my top two front teeth and swallow with my head down. Tilting your head back actually does not help you at all! I learned something new and hopefully you did too!
We also worked on different sayings and sentences. I could make my b's and p's clearer, but my 'f' sounds were almost nonexistent no matter how hard I tried!
One word the student wanted me to say was 'blockbuster.' Which was certainly a little challenging for me, but I said it! The student that was with my therapist asked me if I remember those. I said of course! I remember going to them often when I was in college about 15 years ago - almost 20 now! She said she was under the age of 10....
Holy smoly I felt OLD!
After our session I'm given the homework to practice the new swallow technique and when I give speeches or do talks, I am to remember to speak slowly, louder, and have emphasis.
Now let's talk about OT. This guy makes me laugh every time I see him. He has the humor that mirrors my husbands humor. Which I think is why I feel comfortable around him.
When I first arrived he told me to sit down and relax for a second because I was going to hate him soon. He brought out a storage container half filled with rice and it had three straws sticking into the massive amounts of rice. He then smiled as he handed me tweezers.
I was to grab a grain of rice with the tweezers and put it into the small opening of a straw.
The funny moment...he said to do it until ALL of the rice was gone. I blankly looked at him and he laughed. Ten minutes of testing my depth perception and I would be done!
He then hung up a 10x10 of letters on a paper and scooted my chair at the correct range. He then put a piece of paper in front of me that had numbers and lines on it.
I was to look at the numbers on my paper and then look up at the paper in front of me and find the correct letter to eventually spell out words to make a sentence.
For example, if I saw 3-5, then I would go three letters down and five letters across to get the correct letter. I did a few of these and whenever I forgot the second number I would grunt and then look at my paper once more and then count again to find the right letter.
On one, the phrase was something about scientists performing surgery on cock roaches.
Once I got to the first part of cock roaches I started laughing hysterically. My husband later asked how old I was and laughed. Hey, I have four boys and a husband who all have this sense of humor! I can't help it!!
My therapist then did more eye exercises with me and was glad to see more movement with my eyes and was happy to hear that I see MORE SINGLY now!
There are moments when I see one and a half of things. But there are times when I see single vision for a nice period of time.
He is happy because my eyes are getting stronger! I'm feeling more and more optimistic about my future.
For homework I am to keep doing my eye exercises with each mealtime.
Oh! And at one time in my session I was to take a little break to give my eyes a minute to stop watering. A coworker came over so my therapist could help her with her laptop. I was sitting there and wiping my eyes with my handkerchief, and she looked at me and gasped. She said she was so sorry to interrupt and didn't mean to make me cry. My therapist busted out laughing. He said that's normal for her! She's not crying! 🤣
After my therapies we went to my grandmothers house for our monthly get together with family.
It's always nice to see her and sit with her. The kids worked on her puzzle with her. Listen...she's 95 and does 1,000 piece puzzles. So it's definitely challenging!
She tells me every month how much she loves me and I look better and better each time. I'm improving and it shows!
After Gigi's house, we went to the Udvar-Hazy museum. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called.
The boys enjoyed the trek and we saw a lot of cool aircraft!
Being out in public is always surreal for me. I know I'm different and I know it shows. I hold onto my husband's arm for balance support and to go up and down stairs.
We saw the Discovery while we were there!
When walking through the crowds of people, I've learned you can't control the actions of others. People will cut me off, not say excuse me, bump into me - and all of that is so overwhelming for me. Especially when my vision is still not 100%!
As the kids were getting souvenirs, I decided to wait outside of the store by a wall, as the store was looking pretty crowded. There was a teenage boy opposite of me, just standing there. He then got his phone out of his pocket and pointed the camera right at me. He was peering over the phone at me and it seriously felt like forever that he was either taking pictures or video taping me.
If my boys ever did that to someone, I would NOT be okay with that. I know I've raised them good and right though. So I don't worry about it.
As I was telling my husband the story as we were walking to the car, he said something along the lines of, "so he was staring at you?" And he said it LOUDLY. Right after he said it he said he got louder intentionally because as we were walking a woman was walking towards us and staring at me. He wanted her to hear him.
Being in public just isn't normal. But if that's how people want to spend their time, that's their problem - not mine. The past year and a half as I have gotten stares and as people have reacted badly towards me, that has been my motto.
That's their problem.
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