Hello to everyone! We are all doing well, and Marissa continues to heal.

There are a few recent developments that we wanted to share. The first is that Marissa has been accepted into the “Bridge” program at Barrow and has completed her 2nd week. The program is a 16-week out-patient program built to prepare the participants for their next step.  For Marissa, that is hopefully a back-to-work program.  She receives therapy 4 days a week and she is in a cohort with two other outpatients, so they get to build a little camaraderie. We had heard that there were good programs at Barrow, but prior to this program, Marissa felt things were progressing far too slowly.  We now know who makes things happen! One day we had a meeting with a Barrow social worker, and later that same day Marissa got a call asking if she wanted to start the Bridge program the following week. She was very excited!  The social worker will continue to walk alongside us in this journey helping us navigate through whatever is to come.  She has had personal experience with many of the same issues that Marissa is going through.

The 2nd development is that Marissa was able to see a neuro-optometrist. The Dr. confirmed that Marissa has some issues with her eyes that are common to those that have suffered a TBI that make it difficult to read and impact her depth perception. Marissa has some new glasses that ease the effort her brain is putting forth, and the optometrist is confident that her issues can return to normal with therapy. Marissa attends in-office therapy twice a week and completes at-home exercises as well.  They will re-evaluate after 8 in-house therapy sessions to see how things are improving and decide how to proceed from there. Marissa will complete her 8th session and get tested again next week. 

Recreation-wise, we are always looking for fun, but haven’t done anything too exciting. We still go to Ability 360 almost every day and Marissa started para-rowing. While Marissa’s time is spent on the erg now, the plan is to get out on the water in October when the weather is cooler. Marissa still consistently sleeps about 12 hours every day (8pm-8am), which makes it difficult to do fun things in the early morning or at night when it’s cooler outside. We attended a musical at a theatre in Gilbert last week and are looking forward to some shows coming to Gammage starting next month.  Lori heard that laughter is amazing medicine so now we are on a mission to find humor wherever we can. Board games are still a staple - we are becoming masters at Rummikub and lately have broadened our game play to Carcassonne.

We’ve attached a picture of Marissa with her new glasses. She also got her first haircut since Swedish bootcamp last weekend. We all kind of like it short, but Marissa plans to grow her hair long again.