Brief update - all good! (July 18, 2019)

Worst. Blogger. Ever. Yes, I already know this. Since graduation last June, Sam completed his first year of college. He's going to Collin, our area's community college, and he continues to figure out how everything works. It seems like there's a new learning curve with each semester and all of the new teachers, and that's ok. He's learning to navigate his classes, and even has some pretty cool assistive technology (check out smart pen ) to help him out. 

This summer, he has started vision therapy and gotten new glasses. Apparently, injuries to the brain can age your vision to that of a "40 year old," as the doctor put it. Sam beat me (but not Jim) to bifocals, and he can finally see!  Before when he read, he would hold whatever it was about 1 inch from his face. Now, he's able to read normally and was pretty excited after he got them. Here's a picture of him right after he got them:

One thing of note: For distance vision, Sam uses primarily his left eye. Weird, considering he had a bigger right brain injury, but we'll take it. In any case, what usually happens in that case is that the other eye becomes "lazy" and eventually loses a lot, if not all of its capacity to work properly. When the doctor was evaluating the right eye, he said, "Hmmm," multiple times. In our vast experience with different types of doctors, that "Hmmm" could go really well or really poorly. After he was done, he explained what usually happened (above) and then said, "That's not happening here. His right eye moves up and tries to function with his left eye. I have no other explanation for you other than you (Sam) have a really smart brain, and that you have some higher force looking out for you." I forgot how fun it was to have God step in an introduce himself to Sam's docs. Welcome to the team, Dr. M.!

We're hoping that therapy will help him with not only his vision, but walking and general awareness of his surroundings. We'll keep you posted on how it all goes!

Also today, he went to the dentist for the first time in almost 5 years. (Yes, that's excessively gross. Sorry to those of you who might have been reading when you read that.) It went very well considering how long it had been since his last visit and all of the trauma from the coma, in addition to his ongoing problems with swallowing. There were no cavities, and the only potential issue is an uppity wisdom tooth, which would have happened anyway and for now, can wait. 

That's basically Sam's year in a nutshell. I just wanted to fill you in on his latest pursuits and to thank you for being a part of #TeamSam!