Greetings from Tampa General Hospital!
We are finally here! Manuel is receiving the inpatient therapy that was denied to him for so long, because he didn’t meet the criteria for level 4 of that Rancho scale. After an intensive summer of “mom’s booth camp”, he is more than ready!
Manuel had 80 treatments (2 x day) of Hyperbaric Oxygen and made amazing progress. I’m more than happy with the results, as we shared in a previous update, and know that it was worth every sacrifice made to make it happen. We will be eternally grateful and will always keep in our prayers Chamber of Hope, for making this treatment available, free of charge for kids in need. After his Hyperbaric Chamber treatments, and therapies during the summer, we came home to get things ready and prepare to start our new adventure: inpatient rehab. During the month that we were at home, we continued to work with him, including two weeks of 2 hours daily exercises in a swimming pool, thanks to the help of a really good friend that offered her pool and her time and hard work to help us with this exercises.
They estimate that we will be here approx. 6 weeks. He is under the care of Dr. K, our guardian angel, and he has an amazing rehab team at this hospital. Manuel receives 3-4 hours of therapy daily (1 on weekends). He is working VERY hard to accomplish weekly goals. This past week, besides the progress that Manuel is making in therapies, they were another two (official) good news; it was proven that Manuel CAN read, and he also passed the swallowing test on Friday!!! This means that we have more leverage and options to find the appropriate communication device that will allow him to communicate better, until he starts talking again (because I have no doubt that he will). And now we can give him pureed foods by mouth. He will continue with the feeding tube until his intake of food is enough to support him.
Manuel turned 15 this month, and his brother decided to take him to the movies and make it a “boys outing”. He posted it on his Facebook page and somehow other friends decided to meet them at the movies to spend some time together. At the end of the night there were 4 other boys and 2 girls, and Manuel had a GREAT time. Needless to say that I decided to also watch a movie nearby ;-)
I want to thank all the people that emailed and called me asking for Manuel’s progress, after several weeks of silence. It is not that nothing was happening, but in the contrary, so much was happening that I didn’t have the time to do much on my “spare time”. It is very comforting to know that we count with an amazing army of prayer warriors that always keep Manuel in God’s hands, and are interested to follow this incredible miracle in progress. One of Manuel’s doctors from the ICU at St. Joseph’s Hospital (not the one that gave up on him), saw him exercising in the walker during therapy and he was shocked and speechless; he asked me if this was the same Manuel. He simply said that Manuel has decided to prove everyone wrong; I told him that we praise God for His mercy and we know that He is not done with Manuel yet; this is just the beginning. I’m including a couple of pictures of my hard worker son.
Manuel has come a long way from that PVS (Persisting Vegetative State) that he was in when he was discharged. I’m fully aware that we still have a long road ahead of us (or maybe not), but we have been rewarded in our faith (because we believe what it wasn’t there). I concentrate every day on the things that he can do now, and he wasn’t able to do few months ago, and NEVER ask God “why”, because the moment that you start questioning what’s happening, frustration and anger sets in and you lose focus and become unable to think clearly and with determination. This is the hardest trial of my life, but I know that God is always in control, regardless of how things can look from the outside. The halfway full glass is getting fuller day by day. Please keep “P.U.S.H.”-ing and don’t give up. Rest assured that God never sleeps and He just wants us to thrust Him at all times. Blessings to you all.
Pray Until Something Happens.
