Hello, everyone.

I hope this finds you enjoying a holy, joyous, beautiful Christmas season!!

We are moved in to our new home (3843 Hilpert Street. Pittsburgh, 15227), and although there are still a few small things yet to be done to finish up our renovations, our house is wonderful. Anthony finally has an accessible bathroom, and our bedroom is no longer in the main living area, as it had to be in our old place. Many people have been extremely generous with time and finances to make this house as comfortable and pretty as it is, and I'm so grateful for these blessings.

After six weeks at Mercy's behavioral unit, Anthony came home on November 3 (just three days after we moved). Philadelphia's ReMed program came to evaluate Anthony while he was in the hospital, but the admissions person told me that he needed a lot of physical therapy to get him to a point where they could take him. The problem stemmed from the medications, which made him stiff, weak, and shaky, not to mention crazily moody. Really, it was no wonder that ReMed didn't want him then. Although he could have done inpatient therapy at Mercy, he wasn't in any shape to cooperate with therapists at the hospital. So I brought him home since the hospital was not able to help him behavior-wise, mood-wise, or therapy-wise, and sadly, he came home in worse shape than when I admitted him there. Our experiences at Mercy and some things I'm learning about psychotropic drugs (antidepressants, antipsychotics) lead me to believe that the drugs did him more harm than good, and he's not taking them anymore.

He's also doing much better, praise God. We had a few very difficult days when he first came home from Mercy, but he's been getting better and better since then (and following some cranio-sacral therapy), and the cloud of depression that has hung over him for so long lifted suddenly (miraculously?) on the feast of Christ the King. He still has tough times, but he smiles now, and he talks to me and even wants to know how I'm doing and listens when I talk. He's also unfailingly cooperative when I tell him it's time to do anything (a big difference from when he was so depressed). He's starting to want to move forward, though any attempts to move out of his praying-all-day-long mode (still the norm) can be very discouraging to him.

I'm pushing him to play the piano, talk with the kids a little, lift weights, and be a little more independent. I'm no therapist, though, and consistency is not my strong point, but I'm trying. If I thought he'd respond well to outpatient therapies, I'd try to make that happen, but he doesn't usually want to respond to anyone but me (he did express an interest, however, in learning how to navigate the hills around our house--but winter doesn't seem to be the best time for that). I'd love to know exactly what to expect of him, what to ask him to do, what to say to him, how to encourage him--but I pray for guidance and then muddle my way through this slow rehabilitation. ReMed could still be in his future, but my gut feeling is that for now, he needs to be at home.

Anthony is hopeful about the days to come, which is a great blessing. He tells me, "Life has changed, not ended." Actually, I find that I am having a harder time accepting the changes (a daily struggle for me) than he is. He wants to have date nights like we used to, and he sometimes tries to talk with the kids, but he feels more limited than he really is--and I guess he is ultimately as limited as he feels.

Mentally, Anthony's reasoning skills are still not good, i.e., he has a hard time reasoning through things properly on his own--but it is possible to reason with him most of the time now, which is a blessing. He handles emotions better than when he first came home from rehab last February, but he still is not right where that is concerned (an effect of the frontal lobe injury). Sometimes he still says things that make no sense at all, and when pressed, he won't explain--it's like he realizes that he doesn't make sense but can't change it. Physically, he could use some occupational therapy to help him with coordination in his right arm, which he uses only when he has to. I'm hoping that piano playing can help some. His legs are becoming more spastic. It's not a big deal, and no one would likely notice most of the time, but when he is lying down, it's pretty obvious. I need to be better at stretching his legs to keep that from happening too much.

So for all who were wondering, that's the best I can do at explaining how Anthony is doing. It's tough to know what I mean unless you spend time with him, but to sum it up, he's slowly still getting better but still has a far way to go. I'm happy to hear advice from anyone who might have any!

Thanks for your continued prayers. We always need them, and we're praying for you in return.
Merry Christmas!!

May Christ's peace be yours,
Anna