Sometimes I Get My Head in a Dilly

~~~

Ro* and Dr. Mark Abel, 1 year later.

We brought her home one year ago. Driving every bit as carefully as the day she was born, Ellen and I made our way from UVA Medical Center with Ro* seatbelted in the backseat. Surrounded by pillows and wearing a hard plastic torso brace, she had eaten almost no solid food in two weeks.

A year has passed. One year of watching her recovery and silently panicking every time she rode her bike or scooter, or played with her friends, or even just slung her school backpack over her shoulder.

When we went back to Kluge, Ro's top priority question was, "Which rides can I go on at Hershey Park during the school trip next month?" Dr. Abel's answer was a quite satisfactory, "All of them."

We had so much help and love and support to get us through, and for that I am eternally and humbly grateful. Through this whole ordeal, there were a lot of very, truly, deeply hard times, but not once did things go dark. Not once was there ever really a shark in the water.

~~~