Since the last update, our biggest change has been in living environment: we’re back in the house. While we didn’t publicize it widely, we moved into an apartment for a year to make the recovery easier for Beth and to do renovations on the house, which would make it easier for Beth. We had been planning since we bought the house to renovate for more space; we just ultimately had to expand the plans quite a bit further than we originally anticipated.  The good news: the house is beautiful. If we know you and it’s been a while since we’ve seen you, we’d be glad to have you come by and see it sometime. The tough news: even with the generosity of others helping to make this happen, it’s still been much more costly for us than we had hoped.

And that’s what I want to talk about today. Not money, but hopes and the hard part when they don’t come true even as life transitions anyway.

Over the course of the spring and summer, Beth concluded, for the time being, with her physical, occupational, and speech therapy at Spaulding as we have navigated insurance limitations and provider changes.  I appreciate every day that Beth is stronger now than she was before, but it is wearing on us that her recovery is nowhere close to where we had hoped it would be by this point. We’ve found alternate avenues to replace some of the services, but the transition doesn’t feel good because there’s a big difference between graduating from support and running out of support.

After Labor Day, I’ll be returning to work. Again, this doesn’t feel like a victory so much as a thing that just now has to happen, whether we’re completely ready for that or not. While Beth is perfectly capable of handling herself at home for the day once I help her get downstairs, she still has a wide variety of appointments that she’ll need to get to, and it’s going to be a challenge navigating that and trying to find my place again at work. I love my job, and I love the team that I get to work with. But that team has gone through more than a year of its own transitions without me. I’m already anticipating the challenges that will come from trying to navigate figuring out how to do my job within my significantly different life circumstances.

And, of course, there are all of the hopes that we had even before the accident. Beth was about to start a new job she was really excited about. I hoped to be on the ground helping shape those transitions with my work team. We were already thinking about what our next trips would look like.

Some days, it’s hard to get our hopes up. We still have good days and plenty of laughter and joy in the household. But the planning for the future just continues to stay on pause.

And yet, hope still rises like the phoenix. Meet our newest family member, Zuko. He’s been here for 24 hours, and we love him to pieces. 

I obviously don’t update this page very often, and I’m giving myself permission to say this won’t be updated again until we have something really great to share. If you follow us on any socials, you’ll see little things here and there.

Take care, and hug somebody you love.