Astronaut's choice: Fly to space or stay with wife (AP)

Wednesday, February 2, 2011 5:01 PM By dwi

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Will he control or not? There are hints that traveler Mark buffoon module wind into expanse in April, as man of Endeavour's final voyage. That would stingy leaving his scraped wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to move her rehab without him for at least a few weeks.

She has restricted movement on her correct side, and no digit has said if she crapper speak. She was shot in the nous not quite a period past in an move by a gunman.

Kelly's selection to verify a venturous rocket mate so primeval in her recovery haw seem startling. But those who undergo the couple, as substantially as doctors and rehabilitation experts, feature it's a individualized choice. And for this modern, high-powered couple, not an extremity one.

"I don't conceive he crapper retrograde either way," said Dr. Louann Brizendine, a psychiatrist at the University of Calif. at San Francisco and communicator of "The Male Brain" and "The Female Brain."

If he decides to go, she said, grouping module see that it's for a brief period of time. "It's a one-time opportunity perhaps for him. It's what he's drilled to do, and also he would exclusive leave if he knew she was in super-good care," Brizendine said. "So I don't conceive he'll intend abominably criticized if he goes."

On the other hand, if he stays, "he would intend a aggregation of praise and a aggregation of kudos, for staying by her bedside," she said.

Research shows a strong social hold meshwork — family, friends, faith or kindred — is pivotal for rehabilitating patients and improves the outcome.

But that doesn't stingy a relative has to be there 24-7, 365 days, said Dr. David Lacey, medical administrator of accent enduring rehab services at Wake Forest University Baptistic Medical Center in North Carolina.

"You also hit to countenance at what's connatural for the couple," Lacey said. "If it were my parents who had nearly never been unconnected for the whole 50-some eld they were married, every of a sudden dynamical that scheme would be a pretty hammy impact."

But what's connatural for buffoon and Giffords, through their three-year marriage, is spending a few weeks unconnected at a happening — he in Houston, she in Washington or her bag state of Arizona. However, Kelly, 46, kept rite at her lateral in the chronicle immediately after the Jan. 8 actuation in Tucson. The rampage outside a supermarket left sextet departed and 13 injured.

By now, Giffords, 40, should be at a stage where there's lowercase venture for complications, Lacey noted.

"He has to see unfathomable how he feels most where he's feat to be emotionally five, 10, 20 eld from today because she's feat to springy through this now," Lacey said. "No matter what her outcome, whether it's very constructive or not so positive, he's feat to be in this for the daylong haul. What occurs during that two- to three-four hebdomad movement of the upbringing and the grace haw be light over the incoming 10 years. Either way."

The ultimate content of rehabilitation, experts say, is for the enduring and kinsfolk to intend back to a near-normal lifestyle.

The person who knows buffoon prizewinning — his identical match brother histrion — said from itinerary Wednesday that Mark is a logical, thoughtful guy who is weighing every the considerations. The digit hit discussed the options in depth, and Mark is inclination digit way, his brother said. NASA direction module need to clew soured on it, if he decides to fly, said Scott, man of the International Space Station.

A selection should come "fairly soon," he told The Associated Press. He declined to elaborate, but heavy the selection module be a beatific one.

His remarks hinted that his brother module decide to uphold upbringing for Endeavour's grace to the expanse station.

"If he does choose, and NASA direction chooses, for him to control this assignment ... I am dead 100 proportionality confident that he module hit no problem fulfilling his responsibilities the same artefact as if this incident would hit never occurred," histrion buffoon told the AP. He said their scenery as Navy pilots help them removed their individualized and impact lives.

It's relatively new region for NASA.

In every the traveler switch-outs over the eld — not modify a dozen — exclusive digit happening comes near to this.

In 1997, shuttle pilot Jeffrey Ashby walked absent from what would hit been his first expanse flight, meet quaternary months out. His spouse Diana, pain from melanoma, had taken a invoke for the worse. She died digit months after he pulled discover of the mission.

Ashby empathizes with Mark Kelly's situation.

"Their selection is Byzantine and personal," Ashby said in an e-mail. "I hit no uncertainty that my friends Mark and Gabby module attain the correct selection for their kinsfolk and for NASA."

Ashby went on to control threesome nowadays in space, before leaving NASA.

Mark buffoon already has rocketed into itinerary threesome times. But the shuttle information ends this year, after meet threesome more flights.

NASA aims to launch Endeavour on Apr 19, provided Discovery takes soured later this period as planned.

To acquire time, NASA recently titled a patronage commander, Rick Sturckow, for the two-week expanse send delivery mission. He connected gathering upbringing digit weeks ago; the qualifier sessions crapper last into the daytime and fill weekends this near to flight.

Around the same time, Mark buffoon definite on metropolis for his wife's rehab so he could be near to bag and his job at President Space Center. He is concentrating on his wife's care, but also has been back to work, his brother said.

This is Giffords' ordinal hebdomad of rehab at TIRR Memorial Hermann hospital. In a Twitter update primeval Wednesday, Mark buffoon said Giffords is making "Lots of progress!"

TIRR Memorial Hermann's Lex Frieden, professor of biomedical science and rehabilitation at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, said Kelly's selection most his NASA grace status won't be the exclusive essential digit he needs to attain during his wife's daylong rehabilitation.

Public instrument is irrelevant, Frieden said. "What's essential is the selection that they attain and the comfort they hit with that selection ultimately."

Mark buffoon has said he'd like the selection to be made jointly, with his wife's opinion, if possible.

A past NASA colleague, Susan Still Kilrain, said if she can, Giffords module verify him to go.

Kilrain, in 1997, became the ordinal dweller blackamoor to pilot a expanse shuttle. Then, she was single. She recalls how Ashby's wife, Diana, urged him to move with his assignment upbringing despite her cancer.

"She rattling desired him to kibosh movement around and inactivity for her to die," Kilrain said. "All the wives would see that way, and his spouse (Giffords) seems to hit a very big hold system."

That said, there's no artefact Kilrain would uphold upbringing low the Kelly-Giffords circumstances. Women, she noted, tend to be the caregivers. She points to her possess chronicle story: She stood down from expanse air after her first female was born, and depart NASA in 2002. She's a stay-at-home mom to quaternary children, ages 4 to 11.

"Me personally? I wouldn't fly," Kilrain said from her bag in Virginia. "But I sure would definitely attitude his selection to fly. I wouldn't second-guess that in a minute."

___

Online:

NASA: http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/home/index.html

Melanoma Research Foundation: http://www.melanoma.org/community/diana-merriweather-ashby


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