Friends and family! Thanks for coming to our little corner where we not only share updates on Jared but also share praise reports and prayer requests. The last few blog posts have been quite heavy, but we try to be as transparent with all of you as possible, and detailed. After all, you are all on this journey with us! We want those prayers for Jared to be specific, and although the Lord knows what we need and what is on our hearts and our plate, it is nice to put those specificities in your conversations with Him.
But in my distress I cried out to the Lord; yes, I prayed to my God for help. He heard me from his sanctuary; my cry to him reached his ears.
- Psalms 18:6
Jared has been having a difficult time these last few months. We have been asking for your fervent prayers for his eating and swallowing abilities. He has slowed down drastically with his eating and his having a difficult time keeping weight on his body. He is on that weight loss plan that all of us wish we were on, he has lost about 25 pounds in the last 3 months. He is very much in need of all the calories he can get in order to give him the energy he needs to conquer his day at therapy.
As my sister so passionately asked in our last blog post, PRAY, PRAY, PRAY! I truly believe prayer, along with Jared’s fighting spirit has gotten him as far as he has come. It’s unfortunate that he didn’t have more if any support from his family, I honestly think that if he had received visits from his family who live here near us, and received any kind of encouragement, I do think it would have made much more of a difference in Jared’s recovery. I know that is the devil doing his work though, my family has loved and supported Jared the last year and a half, more than any of you can imagine. This has been a long and hard journey, but I know if you asked my mom and sister, they would do it again as many times as it was needed for Jared.
Many of you that read this, and know me, many of you that work with me and see me on a daily or weekly basis know the journey has been so incredibly hard; with a big factor being that Jared's own family gave up on him when he was still in the ICU. Everyday I ask the Lord to remove that anger and bitterness from my heart, for deserting us in such a crucial time of need. We heard many excuses, "we have to move on with our life, we said goodbye to him in the hospital, we don't agree with what you're doing, he wouldn't want to live like this, I have my own family to worry about..." the list goes on. I think about Jared, that if any of our family members had been in our position, Jared would be the first one and the most constant one always doing everything he could, because family never gives up. And this be true for the Ishmael side, he is one of theirs, one of ours and incredibly loved!
Love never gives up, never loses faith is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
- 1 Corinthians 13:7 NLT
We are approaching a benchmark for Jared, this week it will have been a year since he started at Pate, doing 6 hours of therapy a day, he has put in, give or take 1,494 hours of physical, occupational and speech therapy during his time there. His therapists and techs that work with him have been amazing to him and to us, they work hard with him everyday to improve his physical and cognitive abilities. He has made huge gains since starting at Pate, and although we have had some setbacks along the way, to look back at Jared's progress is just mind blowing.
Here is a little blast from the past, a year ago...July 27, 2022
And now (ish)... April 19, 2023
Earlier this week Jared had a swallow study and a CT of his trachea to check on things as we are concerned with his swallowing since his eating has slowed down. His swallow study went very well, which is wonderful, but it also doesn’t give us any reason as to why he is not eating. If any of you have any ideas or suggestions, please let us know!
Pictured above is Jared at a park day outing with some of his physical therapists, Sara and Chris, working on his standing and walking! We love to see it!
I want to share a praise with all of you, a couple of weekends ago, my mom and sister graciously kicked me out of the house for the weekend. I got to go visit my best and longest friend Britni and her family in Oklahoma. This was the perfect 48 hour get-a-way, and just what I needed, I was able to catch up on old times with Britni, where we reminisced about everything from our childhood to our high school days. The Boyd’s house was my other home, if I wasn’t at home you could usually find me down the street at their Coralberry house where we grew up in the Woodlands. We hung out in the pool, shared some meals together, went to church; which was neat, because when we were in high school we used to play a basketball tournament with our church at an event called Extravaganza there, so it was nice to be back there. I was able to laugh and cry, talk about Jared, spent some time with her sisters, who have grown up to be amazing young women, wives and mothers. It was just the trip I needed to refill my cup.
I realize that this post has turned more into a post about me than Jared, but they go hand in hand. Not only has his life changed drastically, so has mine and my family. We work as a team everyday to help with Jared. We take turns during the week, getting Jared up, dressed and fed ready to head to therapy for the day. A couple days a week my sister gets him up, we have a caregiver, Tristan that comes a couple days a week and on my day off from work that is where I fill in.
Just a little sidebar on how grateful we are to have Tristan coming to help with J…we met her back in our nursing home days, long before we started this blog. These were the 5 months that Jared was in a skilled nursing facility in a coma, (by far our hardest days of this journey). She saw him in his resting and healing days, barely opening his eyes, not able to move or do much of anything but lay in bed. Now she sees Jared interacting with her, picking out his hat for the day, sometimes eating and drinking…what a blessing to have her see God’s work and all these changes since she had last seen him.
We have also been fortunate to have our mom up in Dallas the last couple months. She has been doing physical therapy for her knee, working remotely from here and has been a huge help with Jared. She cooks for him and us of course and is learning how to help with tasks for Jared and gives my sister and I some relief. She has been so patient and taken over meal times, especially dinner with Jared during the week, since he is taking much longer to eat and requiring us to feed him, she is patient with him and loves to help.
It was only just a few months ago that Jared would sit at the table and feed himself, we miss those days terribly and pray that we can get Jared back to those spaghetti twirling, cheeseburger eating stealing my brisket sandwich days.
Remember this...
As always, thank you to everyone who continues to share this journey with us, thank you to many of my coworkers who always ask about Jared and ask if there is anything I need. Thank you to the hundreds of people that do not even know Jared but continue to pray for him.Thank you to all the caregivers who have been a part of Jared's healing and recovery. Thank you to his various therapists along the way who have continued to fight for Jared and push him, (and for putting up with me). Thank you to my family, who everyday, not only sacrifice so much of their day and life for Jared, but still love me with my temper tantrums, bad attitude and bad days.
For anyone who might be new here, or wanting to know how they can help, here are a couple options:
I'm going to drop the link to Jared's Amazon gift registry here:
The most needed items (due to everyday consumption) are briefs and catheters. Contributions and/or gift cards are also very helpful for those items that pop up as well.
And his GoFundMe is still alive and always useful.
Thank you for any contributions and/or purchases - we appreciate it more than you know! We look forward to the day when Jared is FaceTiming all of you to share his gratitude as well!!
PRAYER REQUESTS:
Continued progress in OT/ST/PT for Jared -- more walking, more talking and stronger toileting efforts.
Jared's body will sort itself out, he is having some gut issues. We pray for the lord to take that over and give Jared comfort in this area.
Jared can gain weight and have an appetite and his swallow to strengthen.
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