Happy New Year!

Just a quick update to wish everyone a Happy New Year...I hope the new year brings with it health and happiness and peace in everyone's lives.

Charbel continues to do amazingly well. His voice is coming back stronger every day and his ability to communicate with us is increasing rapidly. Charb speaks in full sentences much of the time, and is able to tell us when he is uncomfortable, itchy, hungry (which he seems to be often). He tells us what he wants to do (such as sit in his chair or go to bed) when asked. Best of all, when we walk in to his room in the morning he always has a smile and a "good morning" and "how are you?" I can't even explain how good it is to hear his voice again!

With his ability to talk, we are able to do more work with Charb in terms of understanding how much he remembers of the past, how much he still knows about the world around him, and how well he can see/recognize people and objects. Charb remembers a lot about the past, but as can be expected, he does show confusion about the time surrounding his accident and his life for the past 15 months (more about this and other memory issues in a later post).

We are certainly looking forward to a new year of recovery for Charbel and for our family, and we wish you all the best. Keep praying for Charbel to have the strength and courage to overcome the many obstacles that he faces.