Here We Are!!

Greetings!! While a number of you have been very kind to say that there’s enough stuff to worry about without worrying about the updates, I know these are a good way for us to communicate with you all about David’s progress since you’ve been so supportive of us. So here we are!  

Somehow, August 8 has come and gone, marking the 6 month anniversary of David's injury. On one hand, I think about how much progress he's made since we first saw him in the ICU after his surgery; on the other, it's hard to believe how much has changed in just 6, now 7, months.

We are now well settled in the condo our friends Darryl and Beth, and Darryl's dad Jim, are lending us until our renovations are done (more on those below). We would love to have visitors over for a glass of sparkling water or wine and to catch up! Please text Erika 😁. While David can certainly text with you, he'll admit (if pressed) he wasn't in charge of the social schedule in the before times either. 

David continues to make progress and get stronger. He's now doing PT/OT twice a week at Kennedy Krieger, an incredible rehab facility just south of Baltimore. They're "e-stimming the crap out of him," as his new rehab doc promised they would. He's also still working out twice a week at Spirit in Kensington, where they have adaptive equipment so he can lift weights too. His latest trick is having more control over his right wrist so it doesn't just flop over. I'm writing this as I watch him work out: he's doing bicep curls, and if you didn't know they were strapped onto his hands with special gloves, you'd swear he was gripping them on his own and it was a normal setup.

I snuck out to Iowa for 36 hours for work, which was also a great opportunity to hang with Dad and Ellie. It was also a great delight to have them meet some of my favorite colleagues from one of our consulting firms, and three of them were subsequently extended invites to the bottling. High praise indeed.

I was there in my capacity as executive director of United for Cures: we commissioned a new mural in downtown Cedar Rapids and had an event on the morning of August 29 to dedicate it.  We had 3 powerful speakers - the mom of a boy with cystic fibrosis who shared her son doesn’t remember what it was like to have CF because his treatments are so successful; a 17 year old with spinal muscular atrophy who is an artist, an amazing teenager, and a warrior; and an ALS researcher and doctor from the University of Iowa. Let’s hear it for treatments and cures - we all need ‘em and Congress needs to make sure they can continue to happen unfettered by the shenanigans of the Office of Management and Budget. 

We are very much hoping that David can get back to work this week. He’ll start at the equivalent of 2 days a week, and then in November, the goal is for him to be back full time. He has adaptive technology called a Glassouse that allows him to control his mouse. He’ll also use Dragon, a software package that allows him to do voice to text. I know he’s both excited as well as a bit anxious about how it will all work, but just like we’ve resumed all of the other things, it’s one day at a time. 

Our house renovations are progressing so well. As loyal readers with longer short term memories than mine will remember, we are turning the space previously known as the “garage” into our new primary suite - complete with roll-in shower for David. Our incredible contractors, Triumph Custom Homes, set up a plywood ramp so David could roll in and guide the electrician with placement for switches since the space has been expanded for him to work out of too. I’m so thankful that we have the Triumph team - at some point, I’ll write about all the things they are doing to adapt the house, but for now, each week I go over, and there are new things completed. I’m excited about everything but unpacking all of our stuff!! 

David says he doesn’t remember asking me not to park him in front of a window and just moving on with everything but I vividly do and have tried to oblige. We met up with David’s brother Doug & our sister in law Honey who got us all great seats at Nats Park for Foo Fighters (accessible seats on field level - which means we were on a platform and could see above all of the crowd). And we randomly bumped into David’s best friend from high school Seth, his wife Barbara (with whom I worked at Lung), and their kids. And we’re looking forward to going to the Nats game later this month with Beth & Darryl. (See, we do want to see everyone!!) 

Just over a week ago, I surprised David with tickets to see the National Symphony Orchestra’s Jerry Garcia Band Celebration. When David and I were first dating and I learned he was a big Dead fan, I always joked about “that one song” from the Dead - Touch of Grey. Definitely a trigger for all the Dead fans out there! While I have learned a few more of their songs over the last 20 years, it’s still a running joke

between us. As the performers were going out to intermission, they did not disappoint playing a fantastic rendition of Touch of Grey.

As we sat there together, the lyrics’ message of resilience and acceptance certainly resonated with me a whole helluva lot. “I will get by…we will get by…we will survive…we will get by.”

Love, Erika & David