A Much Better Birthday

Today (actually since it is after 1 a.m., yesterday) was my birthday. Last year at this time Sherry had been sick for a few days and would soon be on her way to Emanual Hospital in Portland. Needless to say, it was not a good birthday. This year was just the opposite. Sherry was with me as we all spent the late afternoon and evening at my sisters house in Springfield. My brother and sister in law were there as well as Sean and Jody and several friends. The photo above was taken in Kim's backyard. We hung out in the backyard and enjoyed chicken cooked on the grill and a great birthday cake (not to mention a few beers). Sherry was great. She had a great time, seeing much of what was going on and being very social. It was the closest thing to "old times" I have experienced in quite some time. I want to thank everyone involved, especially my sister Kim for setting it all up and giving us rides to and from the party. Thanks to Sean for giving a few of us Texas Hold' Em poker lessons. We want to get together and do that again soon! Kim is going to take the girls overnight this coming Saturday so Sherry and I can celebrate our ninth anniversay alone. That will also be a very special night. Outback here we come! I uploaded a few pictures of the party to our media hosting site. You can get there if you wish by clicking on the link that can be found on our homepage at www.sherrysjourny.com.

We got the results of Sherry's most recent MRI late last week. Dr. Mundall said the scans reveal some "slight shrinkage" in the area of Sherry's brain that suffered the damge. This is in addition to the damage previously discovered. He said however, that it doesn't look significant enough to "make her worse." It looks as if there will be some permanant damage in the area of her brain that regulates her vision. He did tell me to still be positive about the possibility of improvement. Most likely though, it will not return to exactly as it was before. None of this was really news, we knew it from the previous scans. But Sherry "has surprised us before" as Dr. Mundall pointed out. She continues to move forward with a great attitude and work ethic.

We now feel the time may be right to get her into vision therapy and have begun taking steps in that direction. She has a tentitive appointment for an initial evaluation to see if it can help her. Vision therapy is expensive and not covered by insurance. I have set aside some funds just for this but will probably not have enough to pay for all the treatment she may require. Our family is considering another Papa's Pizza fundraiser in the fall to help pay for her therapy, if she does start treatment. From the little I know about vision therapy, it sounds like it just what she needs...we will see what the eval tells us.

Well, enough for now,

I love my wife.....tomorrow we move forward.

Dean