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Tuesday Update: 04/24/07

Just a quickie update…tomorrow I’m leaving town for a girls get away trip with some friends! We’re heading out to Vegas for 3 days of fun, sun, and relaxation. I can hardly wait!! Matt is bachin’ it with his dad again while I’m gone. I’m sure they’ll have fun hanging out and talking etc. The forecast for Des Moines looks cool and rainy…but Vegas is sunny and hot! YAHOO!

This vacation couldn’t have come at a better time. Things have been so stressful lately, and I really need this time away to relax and re-energize. Juggling all my responsibilities can get pretty overwhelming sometimes, and I’m ready to just focus on fun and nothing else for a while!

We’ve also made some decisions about Matt’s continued therapy. Over the past week or so, we’ve talked a lot about things. How far we’ve come, where we’re heading, what we both want out of therapy, and out of life. We talked to his physical therapist here in Des Moines about our thoughts too, and came to a mutual decision to cut back his therapy with her. Starting next week, we will be heading to Panora for therapy out there twice a week and the thought of having two nights out there, and two nights here was a little daunting to us both. The constant running around, the commitment nearly every evening…it was starting to get to us both. We talked about Matt’s progress to date, and all agreed that he will continue to make improvements whether he continues this same regimine of therapy or not. When you consider that everything he does for himself is a form of therapy, in one way or another, he’s doing a lot nearly everyday. We are all confident in his ability to work hard while he is in therapy, continue doing what he can at home, and just pressing on towards his goals. But Matt and I have both decided that we need to adjust our focus a little. At this point, we’ve been running full force for nearly a year and a half. The pace is exhausting, and now it’s time to just have some more life in our life. We yearn for evenings spent talking and relaxing together…with family or friends…without having to rush here and there. We are both just ready to get on with things…on with our life. We both have come to a place of acceptance with things. Not that we think this is it for us, or that he won’t continue to make improvements…that’s not it AT ALL. We just accept that there will always be challenges, there will always be things to work on…but we have many years ahead of us, and we want to enjoy them, not push our way through them with our heads down just hoping for better times. There are so many blessings, so many wonderful things we miss out on - we just believe that we need more balance in our life…which for us, right now, means less structured therapy and more time to just be us.

It may sound cliché…but life really does go on…and we’re ready to finally start living it.

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