Decisions Offered Up to God

Precious Prayer Warriors,

Do you ever remember living paycheck to paycheck? Then, when payday comes around you already spent 90% of the check for what is most urgent or borrowed. What remains is spent in the following few days. Then you wait until the next payday wishing you had more money, borrowing until the next check, and eating Banquet frozen dinners… I feel like that when it comes to choosing how to spend Anna’s time. The important stuff, the non-negotiables occupy so much of her time whether it’s the daily 20-hour tube feeds, the timetables for her medications, the doctors and specialist’s appointments, then comes the therapists, dressing, diapers, positioning, then the homework from therapists, the follow-up to see how medical orders are coming along.  Everything’s important!

I feel like today is payday and we are looking at our paycheck scratching our heads knowing it has already been spent. Even years later on this journey with Anna, we are tempted with the guilt of not being able to do enough. How unnatural it is to have parents choose which therapy is more important and which ones can be put on hold. Therapists often preach to us about why their homework is best and most important of all. Remember two years ago we prayerfully decided for umbilical cord stem cell treatment and intensive therapy? God opened the door. Then we deemed that vision was the best “gains” and so we focused on that; last year we focused on communication. In all these special efforts it seems that milestones were still not met. The Holy Spirit still reminds me to not lose sight of the incredible blessing and privilege it is to have choices and resources for various therapies needed.

It’s that time of years again, where we roll out another of Anna’s IEP (individualized education plan). We’ve learned that most professionals point of view in “presuming competence” is based on their techniques and research -but we presume competence because of God (is anything too hard for Him?). I want to overwhelm the IEP this year because (like all of us) Anna needs supernatural intervention to accomplish anything. Vision goal: reading, PT goal: walking, OT: mastering the piano, Speech goal: eating orally, singing, and conversational. Praise the Lord who fills me with enough awe to ask big!

We have the opportunity of taking Anna to preschool where they work 4 hours a day with her on communicative devices. They are good at what they do and we have not progressed in this area at all. This would mean we cancel the therapies at home in order for her to do this. Anna receives weekly services at home of massage, physical therapy (twice a week), speech, and Occupational Therapy. We also drive her to Speech (communication) therapy, and music therapy weekly. The change might be refreshing for Anna, but the commitment for all of us seems out of reach.  Personally, I dream of adding aquatic therapy and hippotherapy (horseback therapy) and integrating her into social events like dance class or children’s bible study. Or how about more one-on-one daddy-daughter time, family time, song time, and focusing on God time? 

Presenting all that is before us with faith has always been a see-saw between the medical needs and our dependence on Christ. Therefore, we have a conviction that the amount of time we spend before God asking for healing, asking for the Spirit’s anointing on Anna, attending prayer meetings, sharing testimony of God's shepherding us, and talking to the Great Physician ought to surpass the amount of time we spend for doctor’s appointments and therapy sessions.

In truth, God knows and directs His purposes for Anna. Our time is often going faster than we’d like. So where do we turn to? Our God and Father, our Refuge, the Holder of Time, the Healer, the most Loving and understanding Person we know, Jesus of course. We ask for the Holy Spirit to mess with us in all the right ways to straighten our paths and clearly draw us to Christ the author and finisher of our faith.

 Please Pray For:

-wisdom and a straightened path as we lay down our plans and pick up His plans.

-doors to be closed or opened that would aide us in discerning what is most needed.

-increased time praying to the Daddy God, praising Him, and dwelling in His presence.

-the identification of our core values to guide the decisions regarding treatments and medications.

Praise the Lord for the minivan parked right out front with a side ramp for Anna! That has become quite the testimony of this past year for us prayer warriors.

Thank you!!!

The Currats

Neurological Grace

Dear Prayer Warriors,

I marvel at how a pianist can float their fingers on the keys to make the softest of sounds and conversely pound on the lower keys to produce a jolt. The Pianist’s mind constantly fine tunes and nuances his/her fingers to the pressure needed on the keys for the sound desired. This brain-to-muscle relationship when done gracefully makes any instrument seem as an extension of the person. It’s possible to see that the mind is the puppet master of the fingers.

Anna’s mind sends a message that gets jumbled by the time it arrives to her muscle. The result is either too much or too little muscle. Often, it’s a case where her muscles are doing opposite things, like when her forearm muscle is stressed hard as a rock while at the same time her fingers are limp. It is not what the Creator designed the arm to do. It’s so unnatural and weird.  Its not just her arms, Anna faces this dilemma when trying to hold up her head, swallowing, tracking objects with her eyes, sitting independently, rolling over, walking, grabbing, holding, talking, and clapping.

Anna’s thumbs are most comfortable tucked into the palm of her hands, wrists curled inward, elbows favoring the bent position, and her arm pits are preferably closed. Anna keeps her arms bent this way which explains why chewing her wrists and knuckles have become so self-soothing. Changing her shirt, slipping her arms through long sleeves is always met with resistance and fussing.

 It is imperative to remember that it is a grace from God that Anna's critical muscles like her heart and lungs aren't impacted like her fingers or arms. And what an even greater grace to consider that most of us don't struggle with any issues of hyper/hypotone like her. I try and present Anna to you frankly because I know the Lord has a plan in place. I don’t want Him to answer me like He did with Job “Will the faultfinder contend with the Almighty? Let him who reproves God answer it.” Job 40:1-2 No our trust and dependence is in Him.

We carefully track the growth from neurological inability into ability -the hope for milestones met, and much of this happens thanks to therapy. Therapy gives the power to reprogram bad neurological connections into good neurological connections. It’s all super-small baby steps, as a parent this seems like much work for little result if any. But the alternative tends to look like a rapid decline into further disability. This is much too much for me. That is why we pray, that is why I ask you to pray. God knows the good coming out of this damaged little daughter. Oh how Anna sends me to my knees before the Healer.

What a fight Anna is enduring in those daily therapy sessions, the braces, the medical equipment, the muscle relaxer medicines, and the daily stretching times with mom. Here is the bottom line: 

One, break the tone/ bad connection (stretches, braces, medicine)

Two, reprogram the mind to command the muscle (therapy, umbilical cord stem cells, patterning, encouraging)

Three, the muscle responds and forms a neurological bond of good pattern (milestones met)

I notice that Anna’s therapists rely heavily on touch. The music therapist puts Anna’s feet on an acoustic guitar to feel the vibrations. The physical therapist cradles Anna in her arms to eliminate all distractions so Anna can focus in on one stretch at a time. Occupational therapy fights for Anna to use her fingers to grab, clap and hold.  Anna is teachable through of the power of touch, it is critical to her learning.  I’m not a trained therapist so it’s hard to use touch to educate, through it all God is teaching me to slow down and be gentler. 

Please Pray For:

-full exceptional healing of Anna Elizabeth Currat in Jesus’ name.

-a miraculous departure from the cerebral palsy tone in her muscles. From the littlest muscle to the biggest one.

-her core muscles to keep on improving for head control and to keep saliva circulating rather than pooling or getting aspirated.

-wisdom in treatment decisions, medications, which type of medical equipment to buy, etc…

-good neurological connections in her brain, milestones met and actuated through all our efforts.

-mercy when Anna has muscular pain, her joint development can cause pain if the muscles are not relenting of tone.

-the power of touch to be a language of communication with Anna for learning, parenting, and being Christ’s ambassador to her.

-the Lord Jesus Christ to return and make all things whole and new.

-Anna to give good effort in her therapy sessions, to not become disengaged.

-Anna to stop vomiting and having excess mucus at bedtime, this has been ongoing intermittently for three weeks.  

Thanks for reading, and praying,  

The Currats