Abby update - December 5

The big news for today? It looks like we'll be home for Christmas!! Our doctor is so pleased with the progress that Abby has made that she thinks we'll be ready to leave here on December 20. What a wonderful Christmas gift--to all be home together (with animals!) to celebrate the birth of Jesus! There's just a little trepidation on our part--imagining that we'll be on our own--but all the members of our treatment team here at Warm Springs are working together to make sure that we've got a good support network of outpatient therapy and school-system resources lined up for our return home. (They're saying that Abby will probably have home-based school, for a while anyway.) Oh yes, and then there's the fact that we've got a little packing up to do here and our home remodeling crews now have a deadline looming...but God's worked everything out before...). And of course, the final issue is that we're again going to really miss the people who have cared for Abby so wonderfully here. Yesterday the recreation therapist and social worker abducted me at lunch time and took me out to lunch and shopping for a Christmas tree for Abby's room. Just as in Austin, our whole family has felt loved by a very large group of people here.

Aside from that big news, Abby was just a little better at everything today. Today OT and PT combined efforts, and she walked while dribbling a basketball. It's still pretty easy to steal the ball from her, but it's amazing for me to see both her hands and feet working when three weeks ago she could not move her hands purposefully. Speaking of hands, she also got to decorate a Christmas tree during therapy. She also was somewhat better in organizing her use of vocabulary today in speech therapy.

Sing it with us..."I'll be home for Christmas..."--It's truly a season of miracles--
Love,
-the Linams

WHO IS ABBY? - page 8
Abby's a "uniter," not a "divider." She's like the glue that holds people together. Abby is the one who organizes our family fun nights. Holidays and traditions and even just weekend evenings together are important to her. She doesn't even like it when a meal starts without everyone present. During the summer, when I would be tempted to let everyone scrounge for their own lunch, Abby often digs in the cabinets and cooks up something for us all to sit down and share (usually Ramen noodles or macaroni-n-cheese). I think, that in her own non-dominant way, she fulfills this role at school as well, where I know she would much rather have everyone getting along together than to have lots of separate groups of "friends." I think it was the fear of losing this part of Abby that frightened us most. Although we did not realize it when we named her, Abigail means "source of joy." December 5, the day I post this entry, happens to be the anniversary of my father's death. I also think of him as being the joy and energy of our family times together at home. Now Abby, a source of joy in my own family and so important to who we are as a family, is struggling to return to us fully, and we have begged God to allow her to do just that.