Monday, December 22, 2008

Hello again! I know it's been a month since the last post by Mark and for that we all apologize. It seems that when Mark went on the blog site to do his update, some kind of a glitch occurred with the administration of the site and we could not get into it again. With a little technical help from Peter, who is also an administrator of the site, we are up and running again.

We did hear over and over that we had to keep writing, and in all honesty we have been so busy it was not at the top of our list. However, after both Jess's mom and I both heard from women we did not even know who we ran into running errands on both sides of the world, within two days of each other, we thought we should do something about it!! I can only say we are overwhelmed with the number of people who have been following this blog of ours so regularly. We cannot believe you are so devoted to reading this and can't imagine that what goes on in our daily lives is that important, but we thank you all from the bottom of our hearts.

To fill everyone in, Mark is doing remarkably. He has continued with all the therapies and is making wonderful progress. He has been involved in some great recreational progams such as the kayaking and has even taken some scuba lessons in a community pool in Florida. He had the opportunity to play guitar with Charlie Daniels who visited the hospital with a young musician who comes to entertain the boys every month. And yes, he did get his guitar autographed! He has finally moved into his little hospital apartment after a very long delay. Currently, he is the only patient in the Transitional Program, but we expect more to be added after the Christmas break.

Mark and Jess arrived safely in Cleveland yesterday morning on a two week leave. They were a little taken aback by the cold weather (temps in the teens and dropping by nightfall to below zero) but the sun was shining and all was well. They were greeted at the gate by the USO here and were escorted to the main terminal where the Red Hackle Pipes & Drums welcomed Mark home in all their regalia (kilts that is) and played for him. Needless to say this attracted the attention of all those at the airport and Mark was given quite a welcome from everyone around. It was very heartwarming. We headed home for lunch and friends of Mark and Jess's arrived later in the day for dinner, which was so much fun.

Today started out with Jess and Shelley, a friend of Mark's, heading off to see the sights of Strongsville, namely the mall. They were met by PJ, Mark's best friend and he drove Jess around to see all different parts of town. Mark, Rich and I waited at home for the news crew from one of our local stations to do a follow up story on Mark. One of our local reporters, Tracy Carloss, has been covering Mark's progress from the day of the crash and she stopped by to do a piece for the evening news. Unfortunately, she notified us after the story aired that it had been shortened while she was anchoring the show because of time constraints. She is going to try to get the original length story posted on the website in the next day or so. If you'd like to watch just click below:



After our interview, Mark and Rich went off to do some early Christmas shopping (yes, they usually wait until the 24th)! They enjoyed their time out and I went on errands and managed to get this blog up and running again.

We will add the link for the original story when and if it becomes available. We do want to wish everyone a wonderful Christmas and a blessed New Year. We know we are the luckiest people on earth and we hope that good fortune will follow all our dear friends and family who have supported us so much this past year. We will be forever grateful.