It's Going to Be a While

So many of my thoughts for the last two and a half weeks have been directed towards this girl.  As I wrote about earlier, Faith got a concussion on January 8th.  She was hit in the face by a dodge ball (a smaller, harder one) at a youth activity.  We had hoped her concussion would be fairly typical-- rest for a few days and bounce back.  Sadly, we are looking at a much lengthier, complicated recovery.
She has been to the pediatrician twice and a physical therapist once.  She is scheduled for an appointment at a specialty sports concussion clinic and with an opthamologist (eye Dr.) here in the next couple weeks.
She is still very easily and quickly fatigued.  She is having major balance issues and gets dizzy even walking halfway around the block.  She can't concentrate on any school work and can only play piano for about five minutes before she gets a headache.  She is out of swim for a while and spring water polo is most likely not a possibility.  She spends a lot of time in her room listening to audio books.  The pediatrician had prescribed the lowest dose of ritalin to help her be able to concentrated to do school work, and it definitely did help her concentrate, but I am not feeling like that is the direction to take.   She took about 2/3 of the prescribed dose of medication for about a week and she would read books quickly and thoroughly and then write 9 page reports in cursive.  Quite out of character for her.  So while I do love kids reading and writing with a passion, I feel brain rest will be better long term for her recovery.  Hopefully we can get a clearer picture of how to proceed when we go to the concussion clinic.

She is still our smiley Faith, but she is wilting a little under the inability to do her regular activities.  She went to a this week's temple trip with the youth in our ward.  She didn't do any baptisms, rather just sat and watched.  But it completely wiped her out.  She couldn't possibly have swum in the swim meet last night but she really wanted to go out to eat with the team afterwards.  So I went home to get her and take her.  It turns out that was way too much.  She feels best with little no activity.  So here we are.  I'll try to keep posting updates of her status on here. One of the challenges is that a brain injury is completely invisible.  She looks perfectly healthy, but she does, in fact, have a significant injury that is majorly impacting her life.  We are praying for a full and preferably speedy recovery and we would be grateful for any prayers in her behalf.