Update: Wednesday, October 29, 2025

 Wednesday, October 29, 2025

Ruth is back in the saddle

Even though the CT, the MRI, and the EKG negated the diagnosis of a blood clot-based stroke during the weekend of October 11th, Ruth’s stroke-like symptoms indicate that she had a stroke of some kind that was intense in the beginning but left no scarring on her brain or heart. Whatever it was, we praise God that Ruth is back.

“Recovered” is relative

In her case, “recovered” is a relative term. She has regained most of her gross and fine motor skills, her memory and her speech. She can walk unaided, answer simple and complex questions, speak fluently, and both recall her degree of self-awareness that fateful day when she could not understand why her husband and nine children surrounded her in tears when she failed to recall their names or identity. Her signature and hand writing have not quite returned to their former elegance and fluency (she had lovely hand writing), but it’s clearly legible and still better than most people. She’s improving in her keyboarding and texting dexterity.

Yesterday, the doctor approved Ruth’s return to regular living, saying that out of an abundance of caution we could continue maintaining the regimen of intense rest, but in his opinion that kind of vigilance was no longer necessary. When Ruth returned home on Sunday October 13, she simply sat down on the couch and napped the afternoon away, and then went to bed at 8:00 pm to sleep the next 13 hours. Since then she has napped two and sometimes three times per day which would normally guarantee insomnia later that night, but she would sleep deeply through the evening. Ruth now naps closer to once or twice a day and sleeps well through the night.

So, Ruth is released to get back in the saddle with respect to home duties, home schooling, volunteer work at our church, Pathway Community Church, our home education cooperative Wisdom Builders.

Dad, on the other hand, is cutting back in terms of vocational time away from the home, and spending more time to support Ruth and the boys.

Thank you

We are so thankful for our friends and family for their support during this crisis. The weekend of October 11 was a plunge into darkness not just for Ruth, but for all of us. For me, I felt like I was facing the prospect of caring for a wife that might not recover from a stroke, or even worse.

Of course, that and more might still happen in the future, reminding us that demise and death have an interesting statistic; one out of one experiences it.

Our friends and family have embodied Paul’s teaching to the Corinthians:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4)

Pass it on: Comfort others with God’s Comfort

Ruth’s stroke has keenly reminded me of the many types of pain, suffering, demise, and death that our friends and family have endured and continue to endure even today. Even in the midst of their episodes of pain and struggle, they have carved out time to provide meals and even financial support, which has proved critical in light of how many work hours I had to give up in order to keep the ship going. Just yesterday, a dear pastor friend of mine who underwent open heart surgery about the same time as Ruth’s stroke, texted a message of comfort from his bed, to which he will remain bound for another few weeks. He probably doesn’t know this, but Matt did more than comfort me in a moment of need, but echoed Paul’s point: Chris, suffering never comes at a convenient time, neither for the afflicted nor their communities. Reach out and comfort those who are in affliction with the comfort that you yourself were comforted by God.