The Tank

For anyone wondering why my parents are still in town a month and a half after the wedding, I thought it would be appropriate to make an update.

As many of you know, my parents are currently serving as temple missionaries for the LDS Church in Seoul, South Korea. They will serve for a total for 18 months and they started just back in August of last year.

Photo: My dad and Johnny Ahn tearing it up. (Photo by Rachel Thurston)

They came out to Utah January 11 for and intended to stay in the US for only two weeks to attend the wedding and to spend some time with family. But what has been a bittersweet experience for all of us, the day after the wedding, my father had an accident in our home that has kept him here in Utah for the past month and a half and possibly another month.

Matt and I were married Friday, January 13. We left for our honeymoon to St. John, US Virgin Islands at midnight the following day. Just four hours after we left, my dad fell down the stairs in Matt's house (now mine as well). Our guess is that he got up to get a drink a water and walked to the kitchen. On his way back to the bedroom, being in a unfamiliar place, instead of walking down the hallway to his room, he accidentally took the path down the steep flight of stairs and tumbled down into the basement. His fall woke up everyone in the house and he was tended to immediately. He was taken to the hospital in Salt Lake City and observed for five days. He sustained two broken ribs and bleeding in the brain. Because of the brain injury he spent two weeks in a rehabilitation center and is now home continuing his recovery.

Matt and I woke up in St. John to a message from Matt's downstair's tenant after which we called Rachel to find out what happened. My family didn't intend to call us to tell us what happened as it was determined that my dad would be okay, despite a projected long recovery. We contemplated whether we should return home, but decided that all would be taken care of and that we should enjoy the time together until we get back.

Since our return, my father has made great progress and yesterday the doctor cleared him to make the 11-hour flight back to Korea when he felt ready to do so. Physically he is as good as can be. Maybe a little bit slower, but he is fully functional on his own and is exercising daily. I think the neighbors get a kick out of seeing him jamming through the neighborhood in his black puffy down vest. He still has some mental recovery to sustain and is undergoing speech therapy to regain full verbal capabilities again. Overall, he is doing very well and although it is possible that he may never be back to the person he was before the accident, he still has improvement to make which will come with time.

It is crazy to think that just the night before the accident he was active and ripping it up on the dance floor, set to return to Korea to complete a temple mission. The accident has surely slowed him down, but he is determined to regain full functioning ability to perform the duties required of a temple missionary. He is diligently reading and studying to prepare for his return and has really made the necessary effort to get better. He is a tank and although this last month and a half was pretty serious and definitely scary, we are so happy and we feel so blessed that it wasn't worse and that he has recovered so well.

Keep on truckin' Daddy Oh!