Melissa Griffin walked on Christmas! Thanks to a relentless inner determination and the generous gifts of caring people all over the Valley, who have paid for specialized rehabilitation not covered by insurance, she walked!
Melissa, you'll remember, was brain injured during a horseback riding accident last summer. Read Diana Marcum's story about Melissa's accident by clicking here.
Read previous blogs on Melissa by clicking here and here and here and here.
I got this excited e-mail from her mother, JoEllen Moreno, giving all the glorious details:
Woo hoo!! Well, Melissa worked very, very hard in therapy and was able to walk (with a walker) into Aunt Connie and Joe's house for our family Christmas party! What a beautiful sight! I was so proud and excited! So was everyone else! Althobeit slowly and with much concentration on her face....she did it!! Not only did she use her walker, she didn't even bring her wheelchair! What a joyous evening it was. Connie and Joe always give the most warm, fun family gatherings. She is home for the holidays. She left [Centre for Neuro Skills] on Friday evening and gets to stay with family and friends until Wednesday evening. So she is a happy camper. But between you and I, I think she actually misses CNS and the people she works with there. She would never admit it though! lol She is in her 5th week of therapy and continues to improve daily. Her voice is getting much stronger so it is getting easier and easier to understand her. She is going to begin a weekly vision therapy course to help her left eye straigtened out and they think she can do it without surgical intervention. Thanks to our family friend, Sheila Black! She works for a company that actually donated a $500.00 grant for vision therapy. This course is a 10 week course at $135.00 a visit. This $500.00 grant will take care of $50.00 per visit and Melissa's donation/gift fund with take care of the rest. THANK YOU EVERYONE!Speaking of gift fund....believe it or not, we are STILL recieving donations!! I am telling you, people are so caring and we can never thank them enough! It warms my heart! Big time! (About the thank you note...we waited so we could add pictures of Melissa walking into the party but I promise you....a very very sincere thank you card is on it's way to you very soon!) As she is learning to eat again, she eats very slowly. Last week, I brought her lunch and we had lunch together. Her lunch is from 12:00-1:00. When she finished her lunch, she looked at her watch and was surprised to see that it was only 12:24....she looked at me, smiled very big and said "Mom, I am getting faster!" lol I want everyone to know that she continues to work very, very hard at her recovery. In fact, she is starting to give the therapists grief because she wants to work on walking more than they allow her to. She tells everyone at the facility...I will walk again and I will get better!
Her counselor said "Melissa, it concerns me because you are almost too well adjusted. Most people show more signs of depression". Her response was "I have nothing to be depressed about. I am very lucky to be alive." Plus she sees other patients at CNS that are much more injured that she was. So she feels blessed to be doing as well as she is. The receptionist at CNS stopped me and told me "your daughter is so precious. I have been working here a long time and I have a soft spot for all of them but your daughter holds a very special place in my heart. She is one of the most positive patients I have ever seen and so determined." She actually shed a few tears when she was telling me that which in turn, made me shed a tear....anyone who knows me is not surprised about that huh?
Praise God for his hand in restoring her and Melissa for working so hard to walk and regain as much of her life as possible. It is great that she recognizes that it is a blessing to be alive and that getting depressed won't help her heal. I know you can look around anywhere and see others worse off than you. God is good so just believe that you can do it and he will help you accomplish it.