Thursday, May 14, 2009

It was a productive few days in Florida with Mark's team and the Army. I met with Mark's captain and his promotion is still up in the air. When they promoted him to sergeant while he was in Iraq, they did not have him take a required leadership class. They decided to send him to this class nearly a year later in Germany. He was supposed to leave Italy for Germany the Tuesday after the crash to take the course. Needless to say that never happened. Now there is some issue about whether or not they can waive it. I thought they were in the process of doing that but there is some talk that they want him to take it on line. We are trying to fight that if possible. He certainly showed leadership skills while he was a sergeant and training new crew chiefs, but it's the Army, what can I say.

On Tuesday morning Peter, Mark and I met with the podiatrist who was called in by the head of orthopedics to look at Mark's ankle and the issue of lengthening his Achilles tendon. We were very encouraged and delighted with her. Dr. Wagner would assist a Dr. Bernard in this procedure. She explained that in addition to the lengthening, they would most likely do a tendon transfer from his calf muscle to the foot to keep the Achilles from shortening again, and keep his foot from pronating (spelling??). Mark liked Dr. Wagner very much, and although Dr. Bernard had a surgery at the time of our appointment, Mark met him yesterday and was thoroughly happy and confident with him. He would be the doctor in charge. He phoned me yesterday afternoon while I was on route home to Cleveland and promised to call me this morning. I just got off the phone with him and feel extremely confident in his abilities. Mark's primary doctor, Dr. McCarthy has also called me and was excited about this new possiblity for Mark. It will mean 8-12 weeks of non-weight bearing casting and rehab, but Mark decided if it provides him with the ability to walk unaided, it would be worth every minute.

One of the most important things that led to our confidence was that Dr. Bernard and Dr. Wagner were the team that operated on one of Mark's former roommates at Haley. Some of you may remember me speaking about a young corporal by the name of Ariel who entered the hospital with many of the same issues as Mark since they had almost identical brain injuries. Ariel, however, had his lower legs and feet shattered from the bomb blast that he was a victim of. His mother fought like h*ll to save his legs from amputation at Walter Reed. These doctors not only saved his legs and feet, but actually did bone transplants to fashion heels on both feet. Ariel now walks unaided and without braces. Some of the work these two doctors did to reconstruct his feet had only been done once before in the U.S. I think we've found our team!!

Tuesday afternoon, we met with the doctor (civilian) who works for the Army medical review board who starts the whole discharge process, along with Mark's new care coordinator at Ft. Stewart. As soon as we met, she informed us that they would give us the particulars regarding the benefits, etc. but that they would not even consider starting the board process until after Mark has healed from his surgery. She was extremely understanding and the RN who is Mark's new case manager was a wonderful gentleman who, unknown to us, handled all the referral issues with the insurance company when we went to the Clinic while he was home. We were very much relieved since the benefits change some when you leave active duty status and the military stops paying the bills and the VA takes over. We want all Mark's major care to be done as an active duty member for this reason.

Please continue to keep Mark in your prayers. The surgery is scheduled for June 5th. Rich and I will be there. They have a number of tests and MRIs etc. to do before hand and that gives us time to get ready to get back to Florida. I will stay on for an indeterminate amount of time after just to see things are going smoothly. Thanks again for all the prayers and support. It is very appreciated.