Give Thanks

I wanted to thank you all for the overwhelming amount of love and support you have so generously given us.  This has been a very enlightening time in our lives, revealing to us the most compassionate and loving side of the people around us.  You learn a lot about yourself during times like these, you learn a lot more about the people you have chosen to surround yourself with.  We are so fortunate to have the friends, family, and community that we do.

Writing has always been a therapeutic process for me.  It has allowed me to express my emotions and process them in a way that encourages growth and healing.  Working through the emotional trauma of Shawn's accident has been a process, one that I am sure will take years to fully comprehend.  Our spirits have remained high and we have trusted in our faith, taking courage in the knowledge that we are never given anything that we can not handle.  Our lives are defined not by what happens to us, but by how we handle those situations and the perspective we gain from them.  That is how we choose to move forward.  We choose to not spend a single second asking why, feeling anger or resentment, feeling regret.  Instead, we choose to believe that this did indeed happen for a reason and that we will emerge stronger, wiser, and more determined than ever.  We choose to take this second chance and make it the most beautiful chapter in our story yet.

Today is our 18th day in the hospital.  Shawn just had his 5th surgery, a skin graft to cover some of the open areas on his arm.  We pray that it will be the last surgery for a while.  Each day brings a new triumph, some big, some small.  Slowly but surely, he is being rebuilt and healing in his mind, body, and soul.  We hope to be out of the hospital and heading back to Louisiana this weekend.  We have a long and uncertain journey ahead of us: numerous consultations and appointments with specialists, physical therapy, nerve conduction studies.  This will be a marathon, not a sprint.  Shawn's injuries to his left arm were extensive and severe.  He is lucky to be alive, even luckier that he still has an arm.  The long term effects of these injuries are unknown, only time will tell.  For now, he has no feeling or movement in his hand, only numbness and tingling.  The doctors are optimistic this will improve.

We ask you all to continue praying for Shawn and our family as a whole.  Isabelle and Brees are home and doing well.  We Skype them several times a day, savoring every moment we get to see their faces and hear their voices.  My blogging is quite limited with only the iPad but I plan to press on regardless.  In an effort to stay connected, I am on instagram now, you can find me @soulsingingliv.  For all the times I have disliked technology and the affect it has had on really connecting with others, I have been so grateful for it over the last few weeks.  I hope to share more of our story soon.  Thank you for joining us on this journey.