Marks on the wall

A strange image for today. I went into Mom and Dad's bathroom this afternoon and took a (very amateurish) photo of the wall. The reason? Mom had marked her height on the wall twice in the months leading up to the surgery.

I added red arrows in PhotoShop to highlight the marks. Working from the bottom up, here's what the arrows indicate:
(lowest) Mom's height at the time of surgery
(middle) Mom's height about six months before surgery (we note that she lost about half an inch of height in just that short period of time)
(highest) Mom's present height with her new and improved back.

Dad measured the distance today from the lowest mark to the tallest mark. The difference? 3 1/8" inches. Wow. That's 79 millimeters for my European friends out there. It's amazing to see what happens when you straighten out a twisted, collapsing spine. Mom is now 5'9".

She's had another good day. Praise the Lord. It had been a few days since we checked in with "fan emails," so today I spent some time at Mom's bedside, reading your emails to her. She was so touched by your words that she cried. Thanks to each of you who have written to express your affection for Mom in such a heartfelt way.

I'm preparing to leave town until Monday night, so updates to the blog will be a bit sporadic until I'm back. To be honest, I can hardly wait to see all that Mom is doing when I'm back. I predict she'll be showing off her favorite yoga poses.

Prayer for today:
(1) Pray that Mom would be diligent in getting up to do her walking exercises. She can walk short distances, but it wears her out quite a lot. So, please pray that she will "get tough" in this area.
(2) We covet your continued prayers for success in the bone graft. We won't know until Mom's first post-operative check-up in early February whether the graft has worked completely. We'd like to just blanket this area in continued prayer.
(3) Mom is in an interesting space in her recovery. She's not really ready to be social. She's not interested in sleeping all day and all night. She's not interested in watching TV or in surfing the computer — the stimulation feels a little overwhelming. So she's spending a lot of time with her thoughts. She mentioned last night that she'd like to take her experience with the surgery and do something useful with it. She is reflecting on ways to give creative expression to her experience. Maybe this means writing about what she's learned. Maybe it means connecting with families facing the same surgery and advising them on what to expect. We don't know. But, we'd appreciate your prayers for Mom's thoughts during this recuperation time.

Praise:
(1) Mom's pain is less pronounced today. Hallelujah!
(2) We continue to have so much support from Mom's community. Church friends, Bible study friends, gym friends, friends of friends of friends... People around the world are praying for Mom and rooting for her. I can honestly say that feeling all your support is really helping us here on the "front lines" of Mom's caregiving. I guess it's a little weird for you out there in Blog-land to thank God for you, but I certainly thank God for you!