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November 8, 2005
Asher's First Trip Back to Chattanooga, November 8, 8 PM
these pictures are of asher's first trip to chattanooga since he was brought to the shepherd spinal center in atlanta on june 27th. asher has been, understandably, wanting to go to chattanooga for months now. he has continued to tell us that his life will not stop seeming like a dream until he does. according to him, now that we have been there, he says it has really helped to take alot of that dream-like quality away.
sorry, to all of those that we did not tell ahead of time that we were coming there. we really wanted to keep asher's first trip back home fairly calm. after we got there, though, word did spread among his friends pretty quickly, but overall i think things went really well for all of us.
on the way into town we stopped to see our 4 dogs at the kennel where they have been staying since the tree fell on our house. i don't know who was the most excited, the dogs or us. one of asher's goals has been for him to be able to pet his favorite dog, henry, since he was not able to do that several months ago when a friend brought henry to shepherd for asher to see him. i was able to get some really good video footage of asher being able to pet henry this time but unfortuantely it didn't really come across in any of the stills i took. asher has really made some amazing progress with his arms, especially his left one. he can actually scratch the top of his own head with it now. he is pretty proud of that feat, too.
after spending quite a bit of time with the dogs, asher wanted to go and see our house and the condition it is in from all the damage that was done to it when the oak tree fell on it back in july. although, the roof over a section of the dormer on the back of the house has been repaired and covered with roofing felt and the addition where asher's new bathroom will be now has framed walls, it still all has a long way to go. the insurance company has still not released the money for us to begin repairing the inside of the house. so, the way it is looking, now, it is going to be almost impossible for us to be back in our home by christmas. asher has said to us, though, many times how much he wants to be able to spend both his birthday (december 22) and christmas in our own home in chattanooga. please pray that this will somehow be possible.
after seeing the house and spending some time with his grandmother (my mother), who lives next door to us, we headed down to the skate park so that asher could see some of his friends that he hasn't seen since he was injured. he also wanted to ride by to see the building where he fell.
asher had a really incredible time visiting with some of his friends. for some reason, though, we got plenty of video footage of their time together, but no stills at all. so, i don't have anything to show from that time. which is really a shame.
some time after dark we headed out to where we were staying for the weekend, which was about 20 miles north of chattanooga. providentially, the week before we were supposed to go to chattanooga a friend of asher's, that he had gone to school with, came to see us with his parents. as it turned out his family has a lake house that is handicapped accessable with a roll in shower and they offered it to us for the weekend. our only other option, and where we had planned to stay, was in a hotel that had a roll in shower. the problem with that was that we were going to have to rent an adjoining room as well so that we would all be able to fit along with all the equipment that we had bring with us. needless to say, this option was going to be very expensive.
the night passed and asher rested really well. he was pretty worn out, though. the next morning we had to get moving pretty early, because i had a board meeting, which was the initial reason for our coming to chattanooga to begin with. by the way, it was a really wonderful board meeting. it was so good, for me personally, to get to see everyone.
after the board meeting we went to see asher's other grandparents for a little while. they actually live on the other side of our house. it was really nice getting to see them. they, as well as my mother, have only been able to come down to atlanta once since we moved asher down here.
when our visit was over we all headed downtown to meet our daughter, hadrienne, who was supposed to row in the "head of the hooch" a regatta that has just been moved from gainesville, georgia (where the olympic rowing competition was held) to chattanooga this year. it is one of the largest rowing competitions now in the country. unfortunately, hadrienne's race was canceled due to rain. we were all pretty disappointed by that. but asher did get to visit with some more of his friends over the course of the rest of the afternoon.
before we left to go back to the lake house where we were staying we made another trip to the skate park and promised to come back by on our way out of town the next day, which we did. it was almost 8 pm before we finally got back to the apartment where we are staying in atlanta (due to heavy traffic and an apparent accident). needless to say we were all completely exhausted by the time we got back.
i don't think any of us were necessarily glad to be back in atlanta, but given the fact that we still don't have a home to go to, we continue to be thankful for the progress asher is making in his outpatient therapies and that he is able to continue on with them while we wait for the work to be completed.
lord bless you all as we realize again again so many answers to your/our prayers.
praying for the peace of jerusalem,
andy mendonsa
| By Andy Mendonsa | 8:38 PM
