05/12/07 11:45 p.m.

This girl is tiiiired so I'm heading off to bed really soon but wanted to post a quick update. First, we've had a pretty decent last two days. Josh was busy with therapy yesterday and I stayed home to take a nap. We got to drive the van to therapy yesterday for the first time and it was so nice to be able to drive something you know will start and you feel capable of driving! The Hoopty was surrounded by blind spots so I spent a lot of time saying quick prayers and moving over slowly, listening for someone to honk at me! :-) Not your best driving technique.

We spent some money on new shoes and jeans for Josh today. We tried to go to the mall and get him a few things but the sizes he now needs to accommodate this new body of his are not available. His feet are swollen all the time so he now needs a size 14 shoe. They look like skis, but hey, we can get them on his feet! The pants have to be extra long to accommodate sitting in the chair and bigger around the waist so his tubes don't get kinked. This makes shopping for him difficult. He was pretty disgusted last night after finding a bunch of nothing. He says that he should look better and wear smaller clothes considering the weight he has lost, but that's just not how it works. The tummy he was working so hard to run off the few months before vacation is now what many refer to as a "quad belly" or a "Buddah Belly". He does not find it so endearing.

We were amazed to come home tonight to find that Parker Stevens had stopped by to drop off his proceeds from his lemonade stand. He raised a total of, I believe, $297!!!!!!!!!!!! We were shocked and so grateful. Parker is an amazing little boy who has wiggled his way into Josh's heart and he barely knows him. It's too cute.

Our kids are doing good. Thursday night Noah was up late and Josh was in his room putting him to bed. Noah sleeps on the top bunk and wanted to be tucked in. Josh is not able to get to him on the top bunk and Noah was upset that he wasn't getting a good tucking in. When Josh and I were in our room later in the evening, he had a really hard time with this. Please continue to be praying that Josh can find ways to interact with the kids and feel a part of their lives. This is a very difficult thing for him and he needs peace and encouragement.

We went to the Melting Pot for dinner with friends (don't go there unless you have at least 3 hours and nearly $100 dollars a couple. We were in for a bit of sticker shock but it was an amazing place). The atmosphere and pace of dinner was perfect for us. I had time to feed us both and we spent a lot of time laughing. Laughing is good for the heart when things are tough for us. We were thankful for the time we spent there.

Josh is now still up, not wanting to go to sleep. Big surprise, considering he is my night owl. I'm laying here having way too many contractions that are not really progressing me. The doctor said that if I can make it to 35 and a half weeks, Ephram will almost certainly come home with us.  Tomorrow will be 35 weeks so we're almost there. It would be very hard to leave our little buddy behind and have to come home and then make trips up to the hospital. That would probably be more taxing than waiting a few extra days before he is delivered and just putting up with all the contractions and "uncomfortableness". We are completely ready for his arrival. Our bags are packed, the kids are anxiously awaiting his arrival, and we are praying the timing works out that Josh is able to be there.

Right now, my main prayer concern for Josh is feeling involved with the kids. He needs to feel like they still need him and that he is able to fulfill that need. Please be in prayer for this. We would appreciate it. Much love.

Prayer Requests:

-TOTAL HEALING!!!

-Josh's ability to be involved with the kids

-Emotional stability for our family

05/12/07 11:30 a.m.

This is Jean, Shelly's mom, filling in with a posting. First, two notes of thanks from Josh and Shelly. Number One: to the brothers who are taking care of their lawn on Auburn. It looks wonderful! Josh put so much work into the lawn and landscaping of that house last year. It's good to know it won't all become a big mess over the summer. We so appreciate your work! Number Two: to the Wright small group from California for the $3K raised in a Junk for Josh Sale. What a hoot! And what a surprise! Our humble thanks to all of you for your efforts.

Eight-year-old Parker Stevens of Allendale has become a fund raiser extraordinaire for Josh. You might remember that he raised the most money in the 99.3 radio station spring swim. His new endeavor is lemonade stands. He started out in front of his Grandma Steven's house, then moved to his relative's house on a more active street, then today stationed himself in Countryside Greenhouses. Those of you from around here might be familiar with Countryside, probably the largest greenhouse in West Michigan. Today is one of their busiest days of the year, and the owner gave Parker permission to raise funds selling lemonade right at the main entrance. He went so far as to make a sign for them. Parker is the guy holding the orange sign, telling everyone who entered the greenhouses "lemonade for Bucks!" His older brother Chandler was doing the same, walking through the aisles of the greenhouse.  A local country station is broadcasting live from the greenhouses today and will give Parker a 60-second spot sometime to tell people what he's doing. What a wonderful gift such a young boy is to this family. His loving efforts are a blessing to us. Thanks, Parker, and all those who help him!!

05-11-07 3:30 a.m.

Can't sleep. Kinda' stinks when you have a few hours of shut-eye coming your way and you just lay there and think. I turned Josh a little over half an hour ago and finally decided that laying in bed staring at the ceiling was getting me nowhere. Decided to blog.

Decent day yesterday. When I posted night before last, Josh was still out with friends. Because he was going to be out late, Jay offered to get him ready for bed. When they got home they realized that Josh's urine bag was empty and they had been gone over 6 hours. Not a good thing. Come to find out, the clamp that holds the bag shut was not closed correctly and Josh's shoe was waterlogged. His foot was pruned and we knew where the urine was. When with friends, Josh has a tendency to try and laugh things off a bit, after they left, he was upset. It's sort of amazing that you can have a soaking wet foot all night and night and never feel a thing. Some of these incidences are hard for Josh to deal with- can't really blame the guy. So now his brand new shoes are a bit dirty. :-)

He got cold getting ready for bed so we had to try and warm him up but to no avail. When I woke up at 6 a.m. to roll him, he was still chattering and awake. He thought he may have taken a few cat naps but really didn't get any real sleep during the night. This made for a hard day to stay awake yesterday.

We started out the day yesterday morning heading off to MFB where Kristy was working with a group of Grand Valley State University PT students.  Josh did some talking, Kristy did some teaching and then they went through the sensations on his body, poking and prodding. Josh felt like it went well and he was excited to get a gift certificate to Carrabba's! :-) We left there and ate some lunch in the Burger King parking lot, enjoying the warm sun and breeze. It was pretty relaxing and just...nice. After lunch, we headed off to Clock Conversion where our van was ready for us to pick up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The hoopty's life is close to over and we are so thankful for the transportation she provided for us, but we were ready! We took almost a 2 hour training course on how to use all of the gadgets, buttons, straps and safety features. Josh spent a lot of this time falling asleep in his chair while I was learning. :-) At this point, Josh is not yet able to drive and a lot of the info was not applicable to him until he starts driving. Probably would have been nice for him to learn it with me but the poor guy could NOT keep his eyes open.  After our lesson, we drove the new beauty out of the parking lot free and clear!!!! How do you thank people for purchasing you freedom, much less a vehicle worth 2 years of our last salary? Pretty amazing! We cannot thank SLWC enough for all the hard work and success put into raising money for this for us.

We drove home and I could drive with one hand.  The steering is wonderful and I can actually drive in a straight line (the hoopty was not the easiest beast to drive). Josh was talking about everything he could see. He was amazed to see the house as we drove up and all the landmarks close to our house. We had the windows down the whole way home and enjoyed listening to loud music, the breeze in our hair, and no exhaust fumes to drug the baby!

We stayed home tonight. I was exhausted and so were the kids. We just hung around, Josh got ranged, ate dinner together, and acted like a half-way normal family. Josh was ready for bed at 11:00 which is extremely out of the ordinary for him... guess he was tired after the lack of sleep the night before. I have not heard a peep out of him since he fell asleep, he didn't even really seem to wake up when I turned him.

All in all, good day again. A few points of frustration but nothing that ruined the day. The weather is helping Josh's outlook. We are praying it continues. He loves to be able to sit outside and drive his wheelchair under the carport for a workout.  He calls it his race track where he has to drive in an oval and use his right arm more than his left, hoping to strengthen up the right side so it becomes closer in strength to the left. He loves to challenge himself in these ways. Along with Kristy, I now call him a PT nerd too. Doesn't seem to bother either of them too much...:-)

Prayer Requests:

-TOTAL HEALING

-Stability for our family

-Josh's fingers and triceps

05-09-07 11:30 p.m.

Another good day today. After having a hard weekend and Monday, 2 good days in a row are encouraging. After a large update this morning,  I figured I would update tonight because I am still waiting for my little night owl named Noah to go to sleep. He has been sick and sleeping more than usual and now he's done! It's 11:30 at night and he keeps talking about everyone in school, how he just went into his bedroom and kissed Zoe "cuz I like Zoe" and just being all around cute.

Josh had therapy at MFB today and worked on laying on is belly. He had a wedge under his chest and got his elbows underneath him. He worked on lifting his upper body weight with his shoulders and elbows and he looked so normal. His leg would pop around at the oddest moments and I sometimes need to remind myself that he is not doing this with purpose.  For occupational therapy he worked on getting his zip-up hoodie on and off by himself. They also added a ring to the zipper so he could put a finger through and zip his jacket. After about 45 minutes of work, he had done what he set out to accomplish. Because so much of this takes so long, I often wonder how much of this will really be put to use. Is it worth it for him to spend 45 minutes getting on his jacket and zipping it up himself or just having someone help him? We both agree it depends on the task. It's nice to know he is able but there are other things we may put more time into such as feeding himself and brushing his teeth. 

We had a houseful of people this morning. It was rainy so some of our friends didn't have to work and a group of people just ended up over here. We all felt like a bunch of bums but it was nice. We all ate lunch together before we left for therapy. It was a pretty out of the ordinary day but we enjoyed it. Tonight, Josh is out with a friend from Indy and when I talked to him a few minutes ago, he was enjoying himself. I like it when he has a chance to stay out late with friends cause he loves to do that. It means I will have to get up when he gets home but at least he is having a good time.

We all ate together as a family tonight and it was nice to do something that we did so regularly before Josh's accident. We are still not able to get Josh under the table, so he has to sit next to the table and be fed but it was nice all the same. We realized we need to have feet or something of the sort added to the bottom so he can get under the table and close enough to feed himself.

We had another day with no serious body temperature issues which is a huge praise! It was not exactly warm today and he still wasn't very cold. The weather forecast is for warmer weather so that is great too! We hope we have this infection issue under control and that was the source of the chills. He continues to drink a lot of water to try and clear everything out of his system. This is a lot safer for him than taking an antibiotic he may eventually get a resistance to . We are thankful for the wisdom of the doctors working with Josh who know what is best for a person with his injury!

We continue to plead with God to heal Josh's body. He has been feeling more in his catheter line area, we are not sure if it's because it's been more painful than usual or if he is gaining more feeling in that area. All the same, we are encouraged by any change Josh's body exhibits. We praise God for the little things that Josh is gaining such as new feeling and patience to work on things that he may normally scream about! :-) Please keep up in your prayers.

Prayer Requests:

-TOTAL HEALING

-Emotional and physical stability for our family

-More triceps and fingers!!!