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| My poor tulips! |
Erik's appt at Huntsman was Tuesday... the biggest storm day of the week. So thankful for a good vehicle.... 4 wheel drive when needed.... and a good reliable vehicle to get us there and back. Also, thankful for a great driver ~ Dennis! He's awesome! He takes it slow enough to not risk our lives, but gets us there and back in good time and in one piece! AND the bulk of the snow was closer to home in the Cedar area. We had fairly decent roads coming back. We are blessed.
The followup appt went great. Dr. Hunt checked him over and said things are healing and doing fine. Erik's neck is quite tight with all the scar tissue building up. Physical therapy will help that immensely. Also speech therapy.... really it's more than just speech therapy, it's physical therapy for his mouth and tongue. His tongue still reverts over to one side and it can be worked with by doing certain exercises over time. He has some muscle atrophy going on... so this will help with eating and swallowing and with speaking.
Erik's next step is a CT scan/cancer screen the end of July up at Huntsman. The CT scan will show bone growth and it's progress. We pray that the bone graft done a few weeks ago will take and will heal correctly. There's a small percentage that it won't. Dr. Hunt feels like it should be ok. Instead of worrying... we continue to trust in Dr. Hunt's feelings. We could worry ourselves sick all the time if we didn't go by faith and trust.
In the meantime, Erik will carry on life. He's feeling much better and is able to do more and more as his strength returns. He will keep busy with therapy and working part time in the office (Precision Dev) helping Tim and Dennis with various things and will continue this throughout the summer. He's also been asked to help with a project that Bishop Grant has of creating and building an office desk that represents an airplane wing. Sounds a bit challenging.... But give a project to Erik and he'll figure out a way to make it work. He's good like that! He has registered for fall semester at SUU and has lined up all his financial matters. He has a scholarship that will kick in again. Along with that he's able to use another scholarship he was just notified about:
$2500 from The American Cancer Society!
CONGRATS Erik!!!!
Applying for this was no easy task. It took hours upon hours of writing essays and filling out paperwork. So, yay! All the hours of hard work a couple of months ago has paid off. Erik said that 13 of the scholarships were given to young adults in Utah and 3 of them are from Cedar City. He is invited up to SLC for an awards presentation on May 16. It would be an honor to go if we can.
Also, with any more reconstruction with Erik's mouth or jaw... it's good until next winter. It's wise to wait until it's time to have dental implants. The oral surgeon/dentist that does his implants needs to be involved in consultation in improving the site before implants are done ~ so it will happen then.
Relay for Life... this weekend! So glad the weather is warming up some! The high will finally reach 60 degrees and the low will dip down to the mid 30's. The snow has almost melted... phew! There are so many people involved in this and I hope it's not too miserably cold for all those that walk through the night and camp there at the SUU stadium. We registered as individuals this year and didn't do a team... so we won't be there through the night like we were last year. We didn't register the team because we weren't sure what life would be like and what Erik's needs would be at the time. Our family is invited to the Survivor's dinner/reception at the beginning. There is a full program lined up and Dennis is on the program for later in the evening to be the speaker at the Luminary Ceremony. He will do great. When he was asked, he said he would do it if he could make it through it. What an emotional thing he gets to do. We will all be teary eyed, I'm sure. He's a great speaker and will do just fine.
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