Justin, if you're reading this, I know you'll know what I'm talking about.
In any event, I decided that before the following school year started I would go buy the biggest and most wind resistant umbrella that I could find, and I did just that. I bought what I believe to be the zenith of years of tireless umbrella engineering. I take up a fair amount of space in this world, and there's nothing more annoying than an umbrella that almost covers you - the sort where you arrive at your destination and your body is dry but your left arm is soaking wet. My umbrella, however, does not have this problem. When you open it it's roughly the size of South Korea, and so it shelters me quite well. As it turns out, however, it hardly rained at all for the next two years after I bought it, but I am a patient man and I knew that my umbrella's time would come. And so it did - today.
It has been absolutely pouring all day, and so today as I waited for the bus to take me from church to the hospital I was extraordinarily grateful for my huge umbrella. It would be too easy to allegorize this whole GBS nightmare as the rain, and God and our family and friends as the umbrella, so I'll refrain. I will say, however, that it reminded me once again to be grateful for small blessings in the face of adversity - a lesson I have learned all too well in the last few months.
Some days are easier than others. Since we've moved to UNC Emily has really been enjoying rehab (well, as much as one enjoys that sort of thing). She has grown stronger each day, but there are still days that are hard. Today the doctors said that they may discharge her in a wheelchair, and that she would need to continue to learn to walk in outpatient rehab. She was a little discouraged by the thought that she might not walk out of here, and so was a little down when I got here. The rain, it seems, is again an appropriate metaphor for her spirits today.
This thing has certainly had it's ups and downs. Each day is filled with successes and new challenges, but thinking back through this whole ordeal it is almost amazing to see just how far we've come. Three weeks ago Emily was on a respirator, not speaking, barely mobile. Today her therapist got her into a wheelchair and took her downstairs to the coffee shop so that she could get a long awaited iced vanilla latte, and sat with her for a while in the butterfly garden.
Every once in a while - even on rainy days - the sun breaks through.
