A picture is worth a thousand words...

...but even those thousand words can't tell you the whole story.

This is one of the images from the MRI that was done on Tsvetomira a year or two ago. Matt and I are not extremely experienced at reading MRIs, but when we first received the disk with this information on it, we reviewed it ourselves and were well aware of the severity of what was before our eyes before sending it on to Gillette for them to add to her growing file in anticipation of her coming home.

Yesterday we reviewed it with the neurologist who's been working with Mira. She pointed out what we had suspected. Do you see all of that white space? That area is supposed to be filled with brain matter; Mira's is filled with fluid where there is nothing left of her brain. All that tiny girl's got to work with are the thinn ribbons of darker areas at the perimeter. If you want to know what "massive destruction of the brain matter" looks like, there you have it. As you get further down in the scan, her brain stem is intact, as is one other part (part of the thalamus, I believe), but that's about it.

It paints a pretty bleak picture.

But there is absolutely more to Mira than you can see on a brain scan, or a physical exam. She is in there. She is living in a very damaged "container" if you want to call it that, but the little person of Tsvetomira, able to feel pain as well as comfort, indifference as well as love, is in there!

Watching this unfold over the past week was incredible. I think I'd mentioned already how by Tuesday morning she was no longer crying when I started a diaper change - she had learned that I would be gentle. On Tuesday she would cry any time she heard Grandpa's loud, strong voice, but by Wednesday she had also grown accustomed to that and it no longer distressed her. On Tuesday we Skyped with Adam at one point, and I turned the phone toward her so he could see her, but his voice through the phone was very disturbing to her. so we quickly moved it farther away. When he arrived after lunch the next day, she was similarly bothered by his voice (but not Grandpa's anymore), but by the end of the day she was already okay with his presence.

Look - it's "Adam the normal guy" not "Adam the nurse" who you'll see in all of the other pictures. He was very intentional about dressing for his job. This picture must have been taken within the first 20 minutes or so of his arrival, because it's the only time he was in "plain clothes."

I love that she will vocalize if she is nervous or uncomfortable. She has two different cries - one is more of a moaning, and the other is a very carefully articulated "waaahhhhh" kind of cry. It is a joy to be able to praise her for this. "Good girl, Mira Pearl. You tell Mommy when you don't feel good. Mommy wants to know." It is not uncommon for severely brain damaged persons to be able to feel pain. What I marvel about with Mira is her ability to also anticipate pain, AND to learn when she no longer has to anticipate pain.

She is so in there.

After a rather bleak picture from the neurologist about the extent of her brain damage, she followed that up with this statement: We don't know where the soul is. Someone can have an entire half of their brain destroyed in a traumatic accident, and, yes, there are changes, but the person is still there. Even if the other half is then damaged, they are still there. The soul is something we can't see on "this" [the EEG/MRI].

I am often more impressed by God's marvelous design of the human body when I see someone like Mira, in whom so many things are wrong and broken, but she is still alive, and she is so alive - a system that can be so wrong, and yet keep fighting is beyond incredible.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. - 2 Corinthian 4:7

When I see someone like Reuben, or Krassimir, or Tsvetomira, I am humbled as I am reminded that God is no more dependent on my own intellectual or physical ability to save me than he is on theirs. It can be so tempting to rely on our own strengths, and being with these precious people who can't reminds me that in God's eyes we are all equally inadequate to the job of saving ourselves. We are so completely dependent on him. And both Mira and I are called to the same thing - to love Him with all of our heart, and our soul, and our mind and our strength. It isn't the size of my brain, or the extent of my strength, but the percentage of it that belongs to him.

We are so honored to get to be a part of this precious girl's life.