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and talking to

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her neurosurgeon and her trauma surgeon

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about her prognosis

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and

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at that time my thought was that i'd

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very likely

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be sitting in that same seat

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maybe two four six months later

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in that icu by her bedside

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the doctors thought that that was a

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as she progressed

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day to day

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it became started to become evident that

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she was not going to be in icu in

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you know maybe not even two weeks

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i was told by all of her physicians that

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she was going to have a setback that at

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one point in the first 72 hours she was

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going to get worse and then again in the

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first week she was going to get worse

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and

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she would continue to have days where

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she just had setbacks and this was going

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to be

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a process much longer than i expected

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um

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since then four weeks ago nearly four

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weeks ago she's never gotten worse

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uh as we got to about the one week

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stay in the icu we started to evaluate

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where are we going to move her to for a

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rehab facility

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we've got we got received a lot of

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inputs from a lot of great places in the

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country

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it became

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quickly evident that one of the best

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places

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in the country for this type of injury

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was here in houston at tier memorial

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hermann

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so about two weeks ago i started

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going through the process myself

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of what would i need

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in order to get back

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with my crew to continue training for

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and

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you know this has been a a learning

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process in brain injury for me and what

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rehab is like

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and after speaking to

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her rehab doctors and the neurosurgeons

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here

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it also became evident that she was

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going to be very busy

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um

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her days are filled

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from the time she gets up at 8 o'clock

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until after 6 p.m with

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six hours of speech occupational

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physical therapy so she's got very busy

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days

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and meals in between

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and i started to think

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about sts-134 about the mission my crew

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the fact that i've been training for it

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for

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nearly a year and a half

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and considering

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a bunch of other factors including how

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what gabrielle would want me to do

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and what her parents and her family and

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my family would like

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you know i ultimately made the decision

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that i would like to return

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and and command

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sts-134

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so at that point i went to

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my boss peggy

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whitson peggy whitson the chief of the

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astronaut office well mark obviously had

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to make the first part of this decision

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because we weren't going to ask him to

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command 134 unless he felt comfortable

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and ready to do that

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and in addition to feeling comfortable

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he has an incredible support group which

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made us more comfortable with the fact

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that he had folks to help him through

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this process

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and that it would make it a doable thing

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for him to perform the mission

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from from my perspective obviously i

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have to choose a crew

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a crew that will be able to support the

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mission and i want to be able to do that

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with the least amount of risk overall

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for the mission

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and to optimize for success and

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obviously

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although cj has been training as a

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backup the last few weeks

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it's still better to choose the the

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fellow that's been training for a year

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and a half in order to reduce the

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overall mission risk

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so

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we went forward with the plan back to my

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boss brent

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both peggy and mark sat down with myself

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my deputy janet cavandi and my assistant

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brian kelly

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and we we wanted to talk about the

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situation and make sure we

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had thought about all the the potential

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risks to the mission and address those

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appropriately before we made a final

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decision

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so

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uh they came to me mark had a very good

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plan he had

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he had

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a routine

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that he explained to me

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how his days would proceed

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and how he would be able to commit the

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time necessary to train for the mission

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that made me feel feel comfortable

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we also discussed

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with our doctors

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and who were in communication with

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gabrielle's doctors about the potential

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risk of

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of her condition changing over the next

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eight weeks or so and that

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potentially resulting in a change in

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mark's

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ability to to commit his time to the

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mission

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and we

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we had very good answers from the

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doctors mark had a very good plan

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but there was a piece that i felt that

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was missing

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and and so

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we looked at

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this we said well we don't have to make

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the decision this was a week ago we

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don't have to make the decision today

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we need to make it in about a week so

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we wanted to put mark's plan into effect

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so we asked him to train this week

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with a schedule that would approximate

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a schedule he would have while he was

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training for the mission

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and put you know put his plan into

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effect and see how it worked out it also

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gave us an up an opportunity to observe

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mark

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obviously as his

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management it was important for us to

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know that he would be able to focus

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while he was in training and not be

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distracted by gabrielle's situation

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up at

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so during the week uh mark flew a couple

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times in the t-38 with instructors uh he

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we asked him to do essentially a

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complete checkout

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back into the airplane he hadn't flown

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since december

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so he did that he was in a he was in a a

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shuttle

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ascent and entry simulation for four

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hours uh that gave us an opportunity to

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uh to observe him

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as well as a couple other training

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events during the week he was also away

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for an evening which he will have to do

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during training there will be times when

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he'll be away from houston for a night

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or more and so

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he was a he was up in d.c for a prayer

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breakfast and we felt that that was a

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good chance for

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for for him to see what it was going to

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be like to be away from gabrielle

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and i think that was the first time

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you've probably been away from her right

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since since uh since the the shooting

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so we we thought we we had a good

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process for bringing back uh mark into

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training before we made the decision uh

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getting the chance to observe him and

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then we met again yesterday uh we talked

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to the

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to all the individuals or as many as we

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could that that were that had a chance

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to observe mark during the week

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and then we were able to unanimous

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unanimously decide uh that mark was

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indeed ready to resume training on

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monday and fly as the commander

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of course i don't make that final

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decision um

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and

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made that recommendation to my boss mike

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coates it then went through

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obviously the program

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the aaa at headquarters bill

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gerstenmaier and all the way to charlie

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bolden so

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that's how we got from a week ago when

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mark

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felt he was ready uh to today when we're

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we're

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you know i think i personally i'm very

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glad to be able to have mark back as the

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commander of 134.

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so coincidentally

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we had a little bit of a launch slip

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about the same time that this happened

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so our launch date moved from

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earlier in april to april 19th

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and before that we had another slip that

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moved us

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from february to april and when that

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happens it frees up a lot of time in

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your launch schedule so we didn't we

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didn't have a busy training flow even

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before january 8th

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actually

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which is what we like you know something

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pretty reasonable rather than

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a training flow that is jam-packed and

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that's because of our launch date moving

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so those extra days we got

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turned out that it helped

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so

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actually i didn't really miss anything

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maybe

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one

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orbit sim

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for a what's called dock late inspection

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but my crew did a great job at it and

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so they don't they don't actually need

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me i'm sitting here today

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um so

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just that one event

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i have not had that discussion

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we do have email on orbit so i can stay

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up to date

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with with email we do

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have what's called an ip phone on board

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my experience as a space space shuttle

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crew member is i don't use it all that

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often uh it will probably be

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similar to that so my plan is really not

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to ask for anything extra

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and any updates i need i can get via

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email

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well

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bob i don't want to get into details on

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her condition or her prognosis

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but

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let me say that

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she improves every day

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the neurosurgeon and the

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trauma doc's certainly out of the

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picture now the the icu doctor

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but her rehab doctors are just

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incredibly

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impressed with her progress and the fact

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that the slope of that curve is very

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steep they think she's going to make a

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did i personally get the

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with her that okay comfortable with

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people well i know her i know her very

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well

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and she would be very comfortable with

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the decision that i made

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well when i told her mom in the icu in

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tucson that i most likely would not be

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flying sts-134

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she said something like what are you

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kidding me

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you know

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you you have to go do that and i

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explained to her well i'm not going to

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leave

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and i see you know the icu when

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gabrielle's in the icu that's just not

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going to happen

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you know and it's in it's in another

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state so you know i thought that

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that that

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was um

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you know that that was that was it

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and then i had a similar conversation

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with her father so they've been very

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supportive right from the beginning

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so my flight surgeon joe durbay

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told me when we were even back in tucson

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he says when when you get to the point

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of making a decision make the decision

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live with it for a couple days and then

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make the other decision and live with

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that one for a couple days so i actually

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went through that process over

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over a week ago

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and

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so i got a sense of what it would be

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like and as expected today a week after

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uh i think i first spoke to peggy about

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this

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you know i feel

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very confident that i made the made the

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right decision not only for me but for

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my crew members for my family

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and for my wife

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mark given the positive nature of how

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things have been going with

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rehabilitation do you have any hopes

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that she can come here for the launch is

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that something that you think might be a

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possibility absolutely i mean i have

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every intention that that she'll be

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there for the launch i've already talked

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to her doctors about it so there should

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be

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she can't go to the launch so that's

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that's that's

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i haven't spoken to peggy and brent

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about that yet but that's that's in my

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plan

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we really

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did some soul searching you know we

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researched uh

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gabby's condition and uh you know mark's

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support system and really looked into

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this we we think this is a very doable