Hope

I am learning more and more each day how valuable hope is.  It is so easy as a parent to look at your child and feel like he or she will never learn x, or do y. It must start as an infant and the quest to get sleep and snowballs from there. When you add in special needs, it is easy to get stuck in the day to day needs and feel like it is never going to improve and your child will never live an independent life, or have life long struggles. In my last post I shared some of the hope I saw after Sam's last surgery. That aggressive treatment can have valuable lifelong benefits.

Hope is defined by Merriam-Webster as "to want something to happen or be true and think that it could happen or be true," or " to expect with confidence." The Bible speaks much of hope. I found a wonderful page listing what the Bible says of hope on BibleStudyTools dot com. Two things that jumped out at me was that suffering leads to hope (Romans 5:3-4). Hope is something we are to practice with patience. (Romans 8:25)

I have learned how encouraging hope is through a fundraiser that provided us with a new van organized by a friend at church. I now have a reliable vehicle that starts on these cold days. Next time Sam ends up in a large bulky cast, we have room to fit him into the vehicle (not only interior with easy to configure seating, but through the large sliding doors) and the rest of the family too! Thank you is such an inadequate word for the depths of my gratitude. This hope is giving me strength to keep going.

After Sam's last surgery, I saw first hand how much hope helps. We were able to attend a Globetrotter game not long afterwards. I was amazed at how this simple activity for many, lifted my son's spirits and gave him hope. The reason we were able to do this was an organization called HopeKids. They provided tickets for us.

HopeKids provides ongoing events & activities and a powerful, unique support community for families who have a child with cancer or some other life-threatening medical condition.  They surround these remarkable children and their families with the message that hope can be a powerful medicine. These events and activities take money. One of their annual fundraisers is Relentless.  Relentless is a Powerlifting meet held once a year in Rosemount, MN, where a select few people from all over the world are granted the opportunity to fund raise and compete. These funds help support HopeKids.

Sam has been paired together on Team Hope with a lifter named Jerry. We were able to meet Jerry this weekend and are so excited for this opportunity. Please take a moment to look at Jerry's Relentless 2015 Page, and consider a donation. 

As a quick update Sam is doing fantastic. He has been dismissed from physical therapy for now. We are looking at an outpatient surgery in a couple of weeks to remove the nails put in his ankles to correct the ankle valgus deformity. Compares to the last one this should be easy-peasy!