Sydney Alvey

In a couple of months we will mark 2 years since Sydney's accident. In these past months we have felt much sadness and joy. We have also felt the love and support of so many friends, family and strangers. There is no way we could have made it this far without each and every one of you. We had wonderful caregivers and people who really went out of their way to assist in Sydney's recovery. Sydney's recovery is a true miracle of faith and love. She is now independent in her daily needs, attending college, driving, laughing and DANCING as I have posted in a picture below. We are so blessed. It was long road that we wish we never would have had to travel, but we learned many things along the way and received a gift of love that we never knew existed.

Sydney is continuing her recovery and although she may never be the Sydney we knew prior to Christmas Day 2006, she is a beautiful, fun, smart, and determined young lady that we are blessed to still have with us. She has many hopes and dreams and I have no doubt that she will accomplish them all.

We have loved the website and we hope it has been a resource for other TBI survivors, but Sydney has her own myspace and facebook and no longer needs me to speak for her so I am going to sign off for now. If you reached this website looking for a TBI survivor story or just want to relive this miracle please view the video at
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=423051626&blogID=442114700
It is an amazing story.

I have appreciated all the comments on here and your constant words of encouragement. I hope you will continue to keep Sydney and our family in your prayers and we still have challenges and as I Mom I still have some daily heartbreak over the "what could have been".

I love you all and remember everything is possible through

the love and strength of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. That is the most important relationship you will ever have, nourish it daily.

I posted a few pictures of Sydney below at one of the happiest times we have had in the past 2 years, we missed Papaw Parker tremendously, but we had a great time at the wedding of my nephew. It was about time my family could get together for a celebration!

Love to you all and God Bless



Lorrie aka Sydney's MOM

Ben and Jerry's Factory
Vermont Mountains BIAK TEAM SYDNEY

It is such a good cause that is much overlooked and with so many of our boys coming back from Iraq with these types of injuries I am in hopes we can raise awareness. Sydney is overall doing pretty good. She had kind of a BLUE week a couple of weeks ago so I took her with me while I worked in Vermont and we visited Ben and Jerry's and the Vermont Teddy bear Factory. I think she had a good time, but she so much wants a normal life back full of friends and activities. Thanks Kassidy for including her so much lately, she loves being with people her age instead of MOM.

Her phone number is 502.639.3165 in case anyone just wants to say "hi" or to tell her how great she is doing. She is still working very hard at therapy and her speech and balance are improving.

I hate when I get sad about her voice and movements because I feel so ungrateful. How can I complain about her voice when the doctors never thought she would breathe on her own.

When Sydney came home from the hospital we had to buy a large wipe off calendar and keep it on the wall because Sydney could not keep up with what day, month or even YEAR it was. We had to refer to it many times a day and mark off each day so she could comprehend where she was in time and we would update it monthly with appointments etc. This month October, I called home one day and asked Joey about a date and I said oh, the calendar is not updated yet and he said "yes, it is, I guess Sydney did it". So now not only does she know the day,month and year, she actually updated the calendar and entered a few appointments. It may seem like a simple thing, but it was a huge step. This injury really disorients and Sydney still struggles with memory issues.

We are moving forward and the good days far outweigh the bad days at this point, but we still have daily struggles so we appreciate everyone still keeping us in their prayers. The other pictures are from our Vermont trip. The trees were beautiful!!

God is Great

I had the date confused for the BIAK walk it is actually September 27th (My Birthday is the 28th) . It is again at Bellermine Campus, please go to the BIAK website for additional information.

http://www.biak.us/. Please, Please come out and walk. It is a great opportunity to see how far some of these survivors have come and a great way to support the Brain Injury Association of Kentucky. This organization was a lifesaver to us. They were the ones who put us in contact with Zack Hornback and others who showed us that a Brain Injury is NOT the end of the world.



On to Sydney.. she started school last week and is doing pretty good. She is taking 3 classes this semester; math, public speaking (really) and English 102. There seems to be a lot of homework and she is having a little bit of a struggle balancing all of her deadlines, papers etc.

She HATES the public speaking class, but what better way to get past her self-consciousness about her voice. She is continuing to go to PT with Phillip and Speech/OT at the hospital. We are having an increasingly difficult time getting the insurance to continue to cover services because I think they feel she is either; A) as good as she will get or B) good enough to no longer need services. We don't believe either of those things, so we continue to look for other options.

The social scene still isn't where I would like for it to be. Sydney has met a few new friends, but still has not found a crowd to run with. It is just not normal for a beautiful, funny 19 year old to spend Saturday nights at home with her parents. We have talked about her possibly going away to college next Fall. Carmon even stated at U of L they have some dedicated dorms to students with disabilities (I HATE that word) so they have a little extra assistance and supervision. Maybe, we will look into it. I guess we should take one step at a time. Why is it as soon as you can walk you want to run.

Please keep several of our TBI friends in your prayers http://www.pray4samantha.com/, Samantha's Mom has become a true blogger friend, her beautiful daughter reminds me so much of Sydney and we discuss our daily joys and heartbreaks, there are several families we follow on carepages http://www.carepages.com/visit, angelpaula, brandyracy, marissafoor and many others, all at different stages in this journey. Also please keep Scott Jennings, Andrew Verble, Justin Wakefied and James Moore (some of our local TBI survivors) in your prayers.

Overall, just remember everyone is fighting some type of battle so we should make life easier on each other not harder.

We did take some pictures of Sydney driving her car, they are in her camera, but I will have her download them and get the on her ASAP.

Thanks to all who were there in the beginning, the middle and continue to walk with us until the end.

Today is the day that the Lord hath made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.



Lorrie

Still no new pictures sorry. It seems we have been so busy no one has slowed down long enough to take any pictures. We did make the 4 hour drive to Nashville and a doctor looked at all of Sydney's test results for all of five minutes and said " her diaphragm is not entirely paralyzed and I think it will improve on its own". I guess that is good news, Sydney was a little disappointed that there was not a magic fix. The doctor said how important it is to keep building her strength. Sydney has been good at that she has been working out in the pool and working hard at therapy. One day last week Sydney went to the Mall by herself, met Carmon for lunch and even stopped by the grocery and picked up groceries for the family. It is all still so amazing.
Sydney starts back to school next week and she is taking three classes this semester, almost a full load. It will be difficult for her, but she is SO determined to succeed.

The BIAK walk is scheduled for September 28th at Belleramine Campus. We really enjoyed all the support and the money that was raised last year. I am in hopes we can do even better this year. I will be posting more information.
We want to pay back every chance we get.
I hope everyone has a safe and happy back to school.
Lorrie

Well, Sydney did get her new car; a wonderful charcoal gray LEXUS from her father and Amy. Yes, we know she is spoiled. We have been trying to take some pictures but her batteries were down in her camera then we got new ones but she has not slowed down long enough to take some pictures. She has been enjoying her new freedom so much. Going out with friends, taking herself to therapy.She even helped with Vacation Bible School. It has been wonderful and improved her memory and scheduling skills beyond what we could have hoped for. Thanks Dylan and Ashley for the movie nite out she had a great time.
We are asking for prayers because we are headed to Nashville, TN on Friday to meet with a specialist about her diaphragm. The loss of movement in her diaphragm is what is compromising her speech. Sydney still cannot sustain a conversation because of her lack of breath support. We had an array of tests done last week and we are taking them to consult with a specialist. He may not be able to help her but, I felt we had to give it a try.
She is scheduled for classes back at JCC (they start Aug 18th) and she still continues all of her therapies. Dr. Gormely stated at her age of injury she has about a 5 year window for improvement IF she continues to work hard and set goals. We are determined to move forward and continue all the therapies; something that would have been impossible without the assistance and support of others.
We continue to hope for a full recovery. If you happen to see her encourage her to walk, stand up straight, exercise, use her right arm anything that will keep her moving forward. I am just a nagging Mom but I see how when others ask her to do something she really tries to impress and works even harder. Big Thanks to Doug Payton POPPY who always encourages her and challenges her and she works hard to make him proud.
Thanks for all the cards and expressions of sympathy for my Dad, he is greatly missed.
Love to All
Lorrie and Sydney

My Dad (Sydney's Papaw) passed away this week 7-7-08. He was a wonderful man and loved Sydney so much. The feeling was mutual. He was a Korean War veteran and had always promised Sydney all his medals. She now has those and has his dog tags on her new keychain.

He never met a stranger and prayed to God every day to put him in Sydney's place when she was sick. He would come into the hospital and say "I'm old, God should let me take her place". His heart just broke when she had the accident and I am truly grateful he got to witness her recovery. We ask as a tribute to such a wonderful man to show someone some extra kindness and tell each other how much you love them. He always did!!

Sydney showing off her PASSING paperwork from her Drivers Eval at Frazier

Well the day started out with a trip to Philip for PT. Philip is really challenging her and making her go a little beyond her comfort zones so she is having to work much harder. He said she is improving SO much. Then on to a doctors appt for Carmon and then lunch. Sydney and I both were so nervous the closer it got to time for the drivers eval. We did a little practicing around Frazier right before she went in and then it was time. When we walked in another patient had just walked out and he said "I PASSED" and we were like man I hope that is what Sydney says when she comes out.

Then it was wait..wait..wait. Sydney's Dad, Carmon and I sat in the waiting room while she took the written portion of the test, Sydney came out and said okay now I gotta use the restroom before I go driving. Then it was wait..wait...wait again we joked "what if she wrecked with the teacher"? Then she came out with a huge smile on her face and said "I think I did good" and she did!! Her therapist came out and said "how do you think you did?" and Syd said "pretty good" and she said "you are right you did pretty good, a little slow and a few hesitations but nothing serious". She gave Sydney her paperwork and told her she was free to drive with two restrictions; no nighttime driving or interstate driving for 3 months. She wants her to practice more and then she said in 3 months the restrictions will be lifted.

How wonderful for Sydney another step toward getting her life back.

Her Dad has another surprise for her so we will have more to post later!!!

We started out the day singing "This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it" how true!!

Thanks You for your support, pick ups, drop offs and assistance over the last 18 months. We love you all and could NEVER have made it this far without you.