After a visit to my full-term pregnant daughter, I spent a few days with my parents. It had been a long time since I had seen them (Christmas). I met them at their Bible study group that they have been a part of for more than 30 years. I know several of their friends and my dad led the discussion. A good study on John 4 and a fun group of elderly people still learning about God's word. That is so encouraging to me to see people in their 80s still seeking to learn about God and His word. I have heard an 80-something year old say that he didn't think he had anything left to learn about Christianity (I even heard him say this when he was still in his 60s). That made me so sad.
The next morning I accompanied my parents to my mom's speech therapy at the University of Northern Iowa. The stroke that hit my mom in September of 2013 took away her speech. While she doesn't talk, she is comprehending two-step instructions (pick up the cup and pretend to drink), matching words to pictures and working on playing UNO. She has one-on-one time and some group time. The group time is for social interaction and is with people with the same type of language disorder caused by damage to the brain (most commonly the result of a stroke). Anyway, I found the whole thing very interesting (and hard) and am so thankful for people who study speech-language pathology.
Another morning I got to see my mom working hard in physical therapy. They have a very good and patient man come to the house three times a week to help my mom with movement. The stroke also took away the use of the right side of her body. She cannot use her right arm or leg. Amongst other exercises, physical therapist helps Mom walk with the use of two different types of walkers. He helps move her right leg. I watched my mom walk across the kitchen floor several times. I loved the look of determination and concentration on her face.
After a few days with my parents, I took off for Minnesota to meet my husband there.
(Can I take a break here to confess how the rental car I had drove me nuts with trying to figure out how to operate it? Oh, I could start it and drive it, but the climate control, radio and even the gas door release got the best of me. I spent a good five minutes at the gas station trying to figure out how to open the gas release thingy. I finally consulted the manual. I just needed to press on the round door and it popped open. Good Grief. Sometimes I just laugh at myself.)
Okay. Back to Minnesota.
We finally were able to pack up the things in our house in Minnesota. Not only did that house sell, we found one here in South Carolina.
(I must clarify that by "we finally were able to pack up the things in our house" I mean we supervised a moving company packing up the house. And by "we supervised" I mean my husband. Of course. He's the best.)
It took a team of people three days to box everything up and to load it in a moving van. The moving van will unload everything here on Monday.
Whew! I'm tired just thinking of all of those boxes that need to be unpacked. I am so thankful for a husband who has the Gift of Organization. He also has the Gift of Spacial Reasoning and can visualize how our furniture will fit in a house. We spent a good part of today walking around our house trying to figure out where the bigger pieces of furniture will go so we can have the movers do the heavy work.
Yay for your house selling and for finding a new house! Sounds like your mom is one determined woman ... praying she will regain her speech and movement on her right side.
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