Moving

This is Mary Graham on her little bike. She can scoot around the house and even took it to preschool today and used it. Her teacher said in recess they played with balloons in the fellowship hall and she scooted around and played. This makes me so happy to picture her playing like her friends and not sitting on the side watching.

PT has still been very rough, but we are seeing a little progress. She will make progress, and then regress the next day. Lee said it's like we start over every day with her. Her PT said to focus on getting her to move as much as possible. We are letting Daphne stretch her at PT (it was too much of a struggle for me to do it) and we are focusing on moving around more and getting stronger all over. So she is crawling around the house some and trying to get up and stand some in her walker. Her hip is still really really tight, and she still holds it up and it's hesitate to put weight on it. Please continue to pray that her hip muscles will stretch and strengthen to still avoid surgery to release the muscle. Would love to see great improvement over the next month.

This week, however, I feel like overall she's just happier and her pain level is somewhat better. She is wanting to move more and that is a huge step in the right direction. 

So, our prayers are being heard and I'm more hopeful than I have been in a while. I know that hope has come from God and as restless and impatient as I have been over the last few months I have more peace about her these days. And just resting more in His plan and timing.

I have attached a link of a talk I did this past week for a group of women at our church. I was asked to share Mary Graham's story. It was emotional, and I don't love public speaking,  but I was glad to share about all God has done. You can click on the link below and listen if you would like to hear it. 

http://www.covpres.com/showcase/jennifer-sheppard/

Thank you all again for the prayers!

Working hard

Mary Graham has been working really hard in PT the last few weeks. It's hard and painful for her and her hip is still extremely stiff. She does have more range of motion in her knee. And the picture shows her wearing her new brace to try and keep her leg straighter. She is suppose to sleep in it and wear it a couple hours a day-she doesn't love it and it's uncomfortable, but we are doing pretty good at getting her to wear it, with a little bribing involved :). She can stand for a few seconds in her walker, but not straight up yet, as she is still holding her leg up like a frog. 

She is definitely happier these days, loves to play and sleeping much better and mostly her pain is bad in the morning after she wakes up, but gets better as the day goes on usually. We are very thankful for these things.

We are going to continue on for another month or so with PT and hope her hip will loosen up, if not there are other ways (surgically) to help-we are praying that we don't have to go that route.

So, she's making some progress and seems to be a little stronger overall-it's just slow, which seems to be the theme of this recovery. Tonight in bed she asked me, "mommy, why did I have to have this hip surgery?" And I told her to help fix it. She then said, "no, why?" So, I explained more in detail that her hip was in the wrong place and the surgery was making it stronger. She's getting older and definitely asking wanting to understand more. She talks all the time about when she used to walk and when she's going to walk again-it just seems so far off at times. 

We ask you to pray for her hip to loosen and lengthen and for no more surgery to be necessary. Also, for her to continue to gain strength. Thank you for your faithfulness to pray!