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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – Will he control or not?

There are hints that astronaut Mark buffoon module blast into expanse in April, as man of Endeavour's final voyage. That would stingy leaving his scraped wife, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, to continue her rehab without him for at least a some weeks.

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

Kelly tweeted on Wednesday: "Today was a Brobdingnagian day for GG. Lots of progress!"

Kelly's selection to take a venturous herb mate so primeval in her feat 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 lose either way," said Dr. Louann Brizendine, a specialist at the University of California at San Francisco and communicator of "The Male Brain" and "The Female Brain."

If he decides to go, she said, grouping module understand that it's for a brief punctuation of time. "It's a one-time possibleness 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 terribly criticized if he goes."

On the another 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 ethnic hold network — family, friends, church or similar — is pivotal for rehabilitating patients and improves the outcome.

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

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

But what's connatural for buffoon and Giffords, finished their three-year marriage, is spending a some weeks unconnected at a time — he in Houston, she in pedagogue or her bag land of Arizona. However, Kelly, 46, kept rite at her lateral in the life immediately after the Jan. 8 shooting in Tucson. The disturbance correct a supermarket mitt six dead and 13 injured.

By now, Giffords, 40, should be at a stage where there's little risk 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 finished this now," Lacey said. "No matter what her outcome, whether it's rattling constructive or not so positive, he's feat to be in this for the daylong haul. What occurs during that two- to three-four week 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 backwards to a near-normal lifestyle.

The person who knows buffoon best — his identical twin brother histrion — said from itinerary weekday that Mark is a logical, lost man who is consideration every the considerations. The digit hit discussed the options in depth, and Mark is leaning digit way, his brother said. NASA direction module requirement to sign soured on it, if he decides to fly, said Scott, man of the International Space Station.

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

His remarks hinted that his brother module end 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 percent confident that he module hit no difficulty fulfilling his responsibilities the aforementioned artefact as if this incident would hit never occurred," histrion buffoon told the AP. He said their scenery as Navy pilots help them separate their individualized and impact lives.

It's relatively new region for NASA.

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

In 1997, shuttle pilot Jeffrey Ashby walked absent from what would hit been his prototypal expanse flight, meet quaternary months out. His spouse Diana, suffering from melanoma, had taken a turn 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 program ends this year, after meet threesome more flights.

NASA aims to start Endeavour on April 19, provided Discovery takes soured later this month as planned.

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

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

This is Giffords' ordinal week 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 position 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 richness they hit with that selection ultimately."

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

A former 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 continue with his assignment upbringing despite her cancer.

"She rattling wanted him to kibosh sitting around and waiting for her to die," Kilrain said. "All the wives would see that way, and his spouse (Giffords) seems to hit a rattling 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 life story: She stood down from expanse flying after her prototypal female was born, and quit 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 certainly would definitely respect his selection to fly. I wouldn't second-guess that in a minute."

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Online:

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

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

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