Our 1st PT Appt

So we had our first PT appointment today and it was awesome. The Hospital is really nice and the therapists are all really great. Our therapist is Jennifer and she is awesome, and very knowledgable. She gave Mark a workout thats for sure. Today Mark stood up for the first time in almost 6 years which was really exciting to watch!!! He said the view gave him a new perspective which he hadn't had in a long time! The appointment was just as hard mentally as it was physically. She was holding his legs in different positions and having him try to move them and visualize doing it. After awhile she stopped to get him a towel and she was kind of laughing because he was already sweating. It's great to know that they are going to work him hard in every area. It was really exciting watching him stand up and she had him put all his weight on his legs while she held his knees. He was able to do it and then she had him move his knees in and out. We get more and more excited everyday with all this new stuff we are learning and they are doing. Tomorrow is his first injection which unfortunatley i won't be ale to get any pictures because that is one thing they won't let you get pictures or film of but we will let you know how it goes. I posted some videos from his therapy appointment so you can see how well he did!!!

1st Appointment

So today we had our first appointment at the ICM clinic and it went well, and we didn't have to do much. It was more of an introduction and evaluation. They took 9 tubes of Mark's blood so they could check it and get it ready to use later. Then we filled out paperwork and watched a short video that explained everything. It's really nice to have other people here even though we are being treated for different things it's still nice to have people to talk to. Everyone that is starting the same time as us, and the majority of the people here are being treated for MS. We've heard there are a couple people here being treated for spinal cord injuries that have noticed some sucess but we have not met them yet. We get more excited everyday! Everyone at the clinic was REALLY nice but today was our only time going there, everything else from now on will be done at the hospital. We have heard such good things about the hospital and the staff from everyone. Tommorrow will be our first Physical Therapy appointment and then Wednesday we will have PT and then our first injection. We are getting so excited. We will post more pictures later and let you know how Mark does with his first PT appointment.

ICM Clinic

Our friends being treated here as well

On our way


They gave us name tags at the airport so they could find us and i had to show it off :)



They clinic left us fruit baskets in our room which was really nice.
The fruit has been SO good.

Our Hotel

So things have been going good so far. We are still shocked that we are here, but we are starting to figure things out. It has been really nice that there are so many people here at our hotel who are going through this as well because it gives us people to talk to. We are getting really excited! Everyone here has been really helpful and nice with everything. I just posted a few pictures of our hotel and i am trying to post more but the internet keeps kicking us of in the middle of the download, so i'll keep trying.

Our Hotel

Where we eat breakfast and sit most nights to talk to everyone and enjoy the rain

Havn't used the pool yet because of the rain. The other day it
almost overflowed because it was raining so hard!

Our sweet kitchen!!

Our room

We made it!!

Well we have arrived in Costa Rica and we have gotten situated in our room. Its almost handicapped accessible there is a step getting into our room and Mark can't get into the bathroom but other than that it is great! The first appointment is tommorrow at 8 am for blood work. It wil take a day to analyze the blood and the first injection is Wednesday afternoon. He will have physical therapy everyday Tuesday through Friday and injections twice a week. That will give us a 3 day weekend that will allow us to travel and see the country. When we got here it was raining. This morning it was nice and sunny but around 2 it started to rain again and is supposed to rain each day much like the monsoons back home. We have met several others that are here for treatment most of them have MS. It is going to be nice to have someone else here to go through the treatment with. I will get some pictures posted soon. Just wanted to let you know we got here safe.

5 days and counting

So we are off to Costa Rica in 5 days and we're getting really excited. Now it's all the fun little things to get done before we leave! So i am still getting used to this whole blogging thing and so far i think i have things a little backwards. I am very new at this to say the least. So for now the pictures are first and the explanation is at the end. Hopefully it makes sense. Maybe when we get back from Costa Rica i'll have this blogging thing down! :) Thanks again to everyone for making this possible for us!!

Golf Tournament

All i can say is WOW! Mark and I are truly blessed to have such great friends and family. All the support we have recieved has been amazing. Jeremy you are the man and we should not be suprised at how well you can put something together. You are one talented person. Thanks also to Tom, Scott, Paul, Danelle and to all those who didn't even know us but were willing to take their time and help. The Golf Tournament was a blast and we had a great turnout. We wish the weather would have been a little nicer but everyone seemed to be having a good time. We have been overwhelmed with love from people who barley knew us or didn't know us at all and it has been amazing. Again i know it is not enough and i can't say it enough but thank you, thank you, thank you to EVERYONE!!

Auction

Thanks to some very amazing people, who were able to put on a very successful and very fun auction. We had a GREAT turnout and it was so nice to see everyone. We owe thanks to a lot of people for that night and i hope they all know how thankful we are. I'm sorry that i am not thanking everyone personally i wish i could but one person i would like to single out is Beth Baum. All i can say is she is an Angel! The auction was such a sucess because of Beth and all of her hardwork and or course the awesome people she got to help. Thank you Beth for being the wonderful amazing person you are, We LOVE you! There's nothing more we can say but thank you, thank you, thank you!

It's about time

YAY i've finally done it!! Everyone has been telling us we need to set up a blog so people can keep up with what it going on especially while we are gone. It takes me awhile to get things going and i am definitely new at this so bare with me. I keep up with other peoples blogs and theirs are always SO cute and mine will probably not be like that sorry. I will be proud if i can do the minimal of just posting comments and pictures, but maybe i'll learn we'll see. So here we go.... First of all we want to say thank you to everyone!! Words cannot express how grateful we are to everyone for what they have done for us. If not for all of you this would not be posible for us. It is simply amazing what we have experienced these last few months!! Here is a brief preview with what has been going on.