September 15, 2012 - update from Caroline

Last week Seth had a little bit of an awkward moment.  He was talking with a colleague and said something like, “you may not have heard but we had a pretty serious accident, which is why I haven’t been in contact.”  The man said, “Yes, I know.  We actually made a donation to your site.”  Seth quickly and humbly explained that his sisters have been handling that for us and expressed his gratitude.

Consequently, I asked for the information to that account so that we could be aware and vocally express our gratitude to those who have helped us so much along the way…I am overwhelmed.

Never in my life have I been so needy.  The financial support has been and will be integral to our recovery.  I absolutely detest being the recipient of so much…charity.  Especially with the fear that I will never be able to pay it back, or pay it forward to the extent that I have received.  But, I am so grateful.

At times I have felt like my life was on display.  I have wanted to close off and not share too much of the experience.  I have shunned away from photos because the reality is, I don’t want to remember this part of our life.  But now I do.  I want to remember the sincere offers of help from strangers in Zimbabwe and South Africa.   I want to remember the amazing couple that slept with my little girl for three nights while I stayed at the hospital with Thomas and Katie.  I want to remember the steady stream of emails that I didn’t answer but did read and love and appreciate.   I want to remember the kitchen table full of food and freezer full of meals when I returned to Zambia.  And, I want to remember that when I looked at a list of hundreds of people who had taken the time to brave the pay pal system to give us a little help, I recognized many names of old friends and new friends but that there were many I didn’t recognize.  There were many who are just a kind friend of a friend.  And I feel loved because of all of you.

I also feel intensely more inclined to share more of my experience because now I know it isn’t just some drama that people are curious about.  It is a story about us, your friends or loved ones or both and you want to know how we are doing.     

So this is how we are doing: better.  That is the short answer.  The longer version is that a couple of weeks before the accident, Seth’s company let us know they were canceling their agronomy department.  We originally planned on looking for something else in Zambia.  But, post accident we decided going home would be the best choice.  So while the recovery continues, so does life and our life continues to be complicated.  Moving is always crazy, but moving from Zambia to the US is crazy on steroids!  All in all, it has been going smoother than expected which means it is only five times harder than moving in the US instead of the standard, ten times harder.

The skinny is, we should all be back on US soil by the beginning of November.  I will travel with my mom and the kids to California in October some time and Seth will follow after a few more weeks.  The plan after that is a little fluid but we will be happy to be back in a known location even if life is a bit up in the air.

In terms of Seth’s physical recovery: there has been steady slow improvement but we have had a bit of a set back the last few days.  He was riding on a stationary bike on Thursday and noticed numbness in his fingers, worse on his right hand. Friday was the big day he was supposed to take his neck brace off and start moving his neck around a bit but his Physio decided we should hold off considering his new symptom.  That night he ended up with an awful stomach bug.  He is feeling better this evening (Saturday night) but has only eaten four crackers all day.  So, a bit of a bummer recently but we are hoping things will be looking up next week.  Oh, and Seth has lost five pounds. --Caroline

Pre-accident