The difficulty with waiting for a brain to recover is that you can’t see it heal in the same way you can with a broken bone on an X-ray. There is no MRI scan that can accurately depict how well Woody is recovering, nor give any kind of sign whether that recovery will ever be complete.

Each night, I go to sleep hoping that tomorrow will see a great improvement in Woody although I’m starting to realise that’s not really how this works. There are tiny signs of progress every day that are much more apparent to the nurses who have had a week of annual leave and comment on how far Woody has come.

For Stewart and I, it’s hard to see that progress. Or if we do see it, we wonder if it will stop short of where Woody was before. Does progress promise more progress, or does it suggest he’s getting close to a new normal? The latter really terrifies me.

Yesterday morning, Woody was really grumpy. I couldn’t do anything to make him happy and I was frustrated and fed up. He didn’t want to participate in his physio session at all and was just annoyed with the world.

Together with Opa (his grandpa), we took him outside and let him sit on the grass to enjoy some fresh air and snacks. Almost immediately, he got to his feet into a standing position, which he had only done a couple of times inside. Then, little by little, he started to walk. He was a little off balance and tripped a couple of times but he was walking and really enjoying moving around.

It felt like a bit of a miracle that he could go from refusing to put his feet down in a physio session, to walking around unsupported on the grass. He spotted two ambulances parked up and was desperately trying to walk to them. It baffles me how his brain and body can do this.

And yet, I’m left feeling uneasy and I can’t explain why. Part of me thinks “well, he can do this so he can do anything” and that should shower me in hope and optimism.

But the other part thinks “if he can now walk so capably, is his brain choosing to let go of speech, of sight, of fine motor skills and coordination?”. Will one achievement be at the expense of another? And no-one can answer that.

I’m desperate for him to be able to see everything properly again and for him to be able to play with his toys and have a drink from his cup (all his fluid intake is currently via NG tube). He’s visibly upset and frustrated that he can’t do these things. Today, while he was at home, he saw his sister playing with toys and he couldn’t do it. It broke my heart a little bit. Is this a reality he’s going to need to come to terms with? Or will the frustration fuel him to keep fighting?

So we carry on this relentless life, propped up by our friends and family, hoping that as each day passes, a little more of Woody is returning, bit by bit. I would rather it happened slowly than not at all but it is very hard to keep the faith that full recovery is possible when there is no way of predicting, nor measuring.

The sunflower that was once a tiny seed is now growing so tall, almost taller than me. I wish I could watch Woody’s neural pathways form and grow in the same way. I wish there was even some fixed precedent that could tell us “well, if he can do this in six weeks, then he’ll definitely get all his skills back”.

But that’s not possible. It quiet, constant faith. And time.