St. Francis Novena, Wheelchairs + an Adventure Outdoors

Hi All! Sorry for the silence: it's been a busy busy week for Thomas and Natalie!

Many of you may not know that Natalie will be assuming the role of care giver, rather than having home assistance. This week Natalie spent her first full day at rehab working with Thomas and learning the techniques for his home care. They specifically worked on practicing transfers (from chair to bed, bed to chair, etc.). "It's fun to be working side by side together!"  Through October she will be spending a lot of time at rehab with him, learning and practicing everything to ensure his transition home is successful.

His team is in agreement that he will most likely be discharged the beginning of November, just in time to come home to the new apartment. He will then begin their day program, which is the same number of hours of therapy per day, but they get to live at home! And to that end, after a long search, they have found a new apartment that is wheelchair accessible. Natalie wrote: "Thank you for all of your prayers and tips to help us with our search!"

They also had a meeting this week with the rehab's wheelchair representative. Insurance will cover the one chair per seven years and there has been a lot of discussion about whether to get Thomas a power chair or a manual chair to go home in. For the longer-term a manual chair is ideal, for many reasons, but Thomas is not quite strong enough to be using a manual exclusively. But, because his status is changing (meaning, he continues to gain function), the wheelchair rep is giving Thomas a free loaner power chair until he is ready to purchase a manual chair! Great news!

Thomas and fellow patients were taken on an outing a few miles from rehab to give them real-world practice in their wheelchairs. They were given free time to wander and told to identify "barriers" in the community. Thomas said it went really well, but that barriers were certainly opening doors in the manual wheelchair, sidewalk ramps when crossing the street, and uneven sidewalks. He said people were friendly and helpful. He bought a coffee and, since we're having an Indian Summer in DC, he bought a volleyball to practice throwing! A successful excursion!

Lastly, yesterday Thomas began moving his entire left foot at the hinge! It's incredibly exciting!

NOVENA TO ST. FRANCIS

A Dominica Friar shared this story of St. Francis of Assisi (who's feast we celebrate today):

At Gubbio, there was a woman with both hands so crippled that she was unable to handle anything with them. When she heard that Saint Francis had entered the city, she immediately ran to him. With a sad and mournful face she showed him her crippled hands and begged him to touch them. He was moved with great pity. He touched her hands and healed them. The woman immediately returned home full of joy, made a cheesecake with her own hands, and offered it to the holy man. He kindly took a little of that cake and told her to eat the rest of it with her family.

 — The Life of Saint Francis by Thomas of Celano (1229)

This inspired Thomas to begin praying to St. Francis for recovery of mobility in his fingers. Thomas and Natalie are starting a novena to St. Francis today, and we invite you all to join us! 

Click here for the Litany of St. Francis and his prayer to the Immaculate Conception.
(Or click the "Novena" link above.)




Join us in prayer!