Grace's continued journey - one year later

A year ago today we were at Scottish Rite hospital digesting a very difficult diagnosis and prognosis for our little 5-month old daughter after a series of seizures called Infantile Spasms. A year later, Grace is 17 months old, seizure free, incredibly happy and for the first time today, started crawling. As a result of her seizures, Grace has been delayed in the development of her gross motor skills, but has been on track or ahead with fine motor skills, verbal comprehension, problem solving and social interaction.

We're going to the beach a week from now for a family vacation and Michelle had been praying and hoping that Grace would be crawling by the time we went to the beach so that she could have some freedom to explore. God lovingly has given my wife the desire of her heart and ahead of schedule at that. :0) Grace has been on the threshold of crawling for the past week or so, but today it's like everything just clicked for her and I'm actually blown away to see how confidently she's moving and with a little speed, even if it's only for a very short distance. It's been somewhat surreal for Michelle and I to witness this significant developmental milestone and we can't believe that the day has finally come for Grace to crawl.

Since last December we've had a weekly session with a physical therapist in our home to help Grace develop her gross motor skills which were significantly delayed because of her previous seizures. The therapist more or less teaches us how to work with Grace on a weekly basis so Michelle's really been Grace's therapist, working with her on a daily basis. It hasn't been easy, having to manually manipulate Grace's every move with things related to sitting up, pushing up, pulling up, shifting weight, etc. in order to teach her how to be mobile. I'm amazed that children just normally do all of these things intuitively--it's hard to imagine, really.

We continue to teach Grace about walking, using the parallel bars from the therapist, so that Grace can hold on to each side and take steps. Up until recently, where Grace has started taking some steps on her own, we had to manually shift her weight and move her feet. She's starting to catch the vision though. We're praying she'll be capably walking by the time of the arrival of her baby sister at the end of October so she can help with chores around the house. :0)

Thank you guys for your continued support and prayers as many of you have continued to check in on Grace and see how she's doing. We are grateful most of all to the Lord for healing our baby girl and we're seeing the completion of his promise to us in Isaiah 43, that Grace would walk through the fire and not be burned--that there would be no evidence that she ever went through the fire at all. That promise is coming to pass more and more as time goes by.

Grateful for our loving Heavenly Father and the healing power of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ,

Derek (for Michelle and I)