Return to Normalcy / Thank you PCC!
Things are finally getting settled. Isaiah's recovery has been awesome. We're almost back to a fully normal schedule. He went to school all of last week and thankfully, due to all the rain, he didn't even notice he couldn't do Gym or go out for recess. He's still not supposed to run or jump much until Friday which is the official 4 week mark from the surgery, but it's hard to keep this kiddo down when he's feeling good. This week we'll ramp back up his Occupational and Speech therapies and we've already restarted ABA therapy. We've also been back to church now for the second week which has been wonderful.
We just want to thank everyone at Passion City Church so very much for all of their thoughts and prayers this last month. It's just such so amazing that Isaiah and us, in part, have been lifted up so much in prayer. It's been so evident to us this go around of surgery how much it helps to have a church community that we call home praying for us in addition to everything from our friends and family around the US. It's so very humbling to us when Isaiah's story gets around and people we may have not met before come up to Rachel or me to give us encouragement or a hug, especially in a church Passion City's size. We haven't even made it back to our Marietta / Kennesaw Community group and have already felt the powerful outpouring of love from everyone these past two Sundays. I don't know how to describe it other than it being a God thing that we've been spared from so much of the anguish and anxiety we had four years ago for his last major surgery. Sure there are stressful times and this is by no means easy. It has just been a smoother feeling process than last time and I know I had this overwhelming calmness during his surgery that Isaiah was in good hands. Even insurance is seemingly paying things out with little issue (at least so far!).
I'm really not great at putting this all into words. I am honestly fighting back the tears as I write this which isn't easy for a guy to admit, but this is not something we experienced when Isaiah was first born and going through the first stage of surgeries. We were lucky to have Rachel's family nearby in Roswell, but had few other friends since we had only moved to Atlanta from Minneapolis in 2007, a few days shy of a year before his birth. My family was still up in Wisconsin and Minnesota and made it down during recovery and after when they could. We had left a wonderful Church up north called Church of the Open Door and it had taken us 5 years of on and off searching for a church home that 'fit' us and could handle Isaiah after he was born in 2008. We knew instantly back in May of 2012 the first weekend we attended PCC that we had found our new church home and everyone's support has just reaffirmed that feeling, as well as, and more importantly, the great healing power of Jesus.
We still feel like we insulate ourselves from people and things around us, but it's getting better and it's truly nice to finally feel like we're beginning to meet more people again and come out of our cave and returning to a sense of normalcy ourselves. In addition to the PCC Community, Rachel's family is still nearby and my Mom has moved to Florida for work. She's now only a 5 hr drive away and it's been great to see her more this year,. I've had a wonderful job at a larger architectural firm with less travel and stress than the past few positions I've had and Rachel's working part time again for Corrigan Care, a local non-profit helping families of special needs children. It also helps we've met a network of other families across the county and the globe with adults that have Apert Syndrome or have children with a similar syndrome. We still don't do much socially outside of work and family, but it's slowly starting to pick up, but we definitely don't feel so alone anymore.
I'm really starting to ramble here, but all I really want to say is thank you all so much for following along with us on Isaiah's journey.
We just want to thank everyone at Passion City Church so very much for all of their thoughts and prayers this last month. It's just such so amazing that Isaiah and us, in part, have been lifted up so much in prayer. It's been so evident to us this go around of surgery how much it helps to have a church community that we call home praying for us in addition to everything from our friends and family around the US. It's so very humbling to us when Isaiah's story gets around and people we may have not met before come up to Rachel or me to give us encouragement or a hug, especially in a church Passion City's size. We haven't even made it back to our Marietta / Kennesaw Community group and have already felt the powerful outpouring of love from everyone these past two Sundays. I don't know how to describe it other than it being a God thing that we've been spared from so much of the anguish and anxiety we had four years ago for his last major surgery. Sure there are stressful times and this is by no means easy. It has just been a smoother feeling process than last time and I know I had this overwhelming calmness during his surgery that Isaiah was in good hands. Even insurance is seemingly paying things out with little issue (at least so far!).
I'm really not great at putting this all into words. I am honestly fighting back the tears as I write this which isn't easy for a guy to admit, but this is not something we experienced when Isaiah was first born and going through the first stage of surgeries. We were lucky to have Rachel's family nearby in Roswell, but had few other friends since we had only moved to Atlanta from Minneapolis in 2007, a few days shy of a year before his birth. My family was still up in Wisconsin and Minnesota and made it down during recovery and after when they could. We had left a wonderful Church up north called Church of the Open Door and it had taken us 5 years of on and off searching for a church home that 'fit' us and could handle Isaiah after he was born in 2008. We knew instantly back in May of 2012 the first weekend we attended PCC that we had found our new church home and everyone's support has just reaffirmed that feeling, as well as, and more importantly, the great healing power of Jesus.
We still feel like we insulate ourselves from people and things around us, but it's getting better and it's truly nice to finally feel like we're beginning to meet more people again and come out of our cave and returning to a sense of normalcy ourselves. In addition to the PCC Community, Rachel's family is still nearby and my Mom has moved to Florida for work. She's now only a 5 hr drive away and it's been great to see her more this year,. I've had a wonderful job at a larger architectural firm with less travel and stress than the past few positions I've had and Rachel's working part time again for Corrigan Care, a local non-profit helping families of special needs children. It also helps we've met a network of other families across the county and the globe with adults that have Apert Syndrome or have children with a similar syndrome. We still don't do much socially outside of work and family, but it's slowly starting to pick up, but we definitely don't feel so alone anymore.
I'm really starting to ramble here, but all I really want to say is thank you all so much for following along with us on Isaiah's journey.
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