two years after carl

Feb 27, 2022

Two years ago today, we were at the University of Utah hospital having Carl the Schwannoma evicted. What a day that was and what a journey since.

We felt so wrapped up in your love that day and in the days and weeks and months that followed. Thank you, thank you, thank you for carrying us and helping us all along this journey. Your kindness and hugs and laughter and faith and money and meals and tears and and hurrahs have made this a holy experience of being ministered to, walked with, and lifted up. It has been so, so hard…and somehow at the same time, it has felt almost easy. Your love and God’s tender care have filled this journey with light.

Richard continues to improve in many areas and also to struggle with some things.

The wins:

• His balance continues to get better. In fact, he has had a few slipping incidents on the ice this winter and hasn’t fallen!

• Can engage in almost any activity he wants to…he just can’t engage very long.

• Getting more comfortable with his single-sided deafness. And I’m getting better at interpreting for him so he understands what he can’t hear.

• He’s doing 100 pushups a few times a week.

• He’s walking a mile a few times a week.

• He can close his eyes in the shower while he is scrubbing his face and doesn’t feel like he is going to fall.

• He can keep his balance with much less light.

• He is sleeping deeply most of the time.

The struggles:

• Still can’t attend church for more than an hour. The noise coming from all different directions, the organ, and the electronic speakers throughout the room vs sound coming from the person’s mouth who is speaking at the front of the room, do a number on his brain every week.

• Really struggles with learning new things. If the concepts were known before surgery, he can integrate them, but if he is trying to learn a new concept, he says he can’t focus on it and it feels like there isn’t a file folder to put it in and the information doesn’t get stored.

• Neurological stamina is still short.

• His eyes can’t track very well while reading – so he’s not really able to read a book.

• He feels overwhelmed if two people are trying to talk to him at a time. He needs to focus on one thing at a time.

• His skull continues to shift and cause him great pain. The scar tissue and fascial layers pull on his skull bones and move things all wonky. The last big shift happened two weeks ago and actually pulled things down on the left side instead of the right. He was pretty miserable and had to miss work at his 2nd and 3rd jobs several days in a row because his brain and body needed to come home and do his near-infrared lights and sleep.

Our life has changed. Our time together is sweeter. I do far less socializing than I used to and far more sitting with him at home. He needs the quiet and calm of our home and rarely attends parties or receptions or group gatherings. If our children are performing, he tries his best to attend, but it wears him out and he has to sleep for many hours to recover from a social event. Life here is pretty quiet. It’s just what he needs.

I try to lessen his burdens, but the reality is, he works even harder at easing mine. He is my hero. He puts God first and all of us a very, very close, nearly undetectable, second. He serves and listens and forgives and laughs. He is kind, unassuming, brave, patient, and willing to work hard. He shows me every day what love does, what faith feels like, and how courage fuels an ordinary man to do extraordinary things.

It seems a bit surreal to be two years out from brain surgery. It has felt like a lifetime and also like a blink all at the same time. I’m so grateful to be 1,825 days past surgery. A shirt I saw recently said “Life is periodically hard, but elementally good.” Sooooo true! There has definitely been some hard, but oh, my goodness, life is so deliciously good.