6 months ago today, I received the phone call no one ever is ready for. The call informing me that my son, Corporal Justin Crabbe was critically wounded in the Afghanistan war. During those 6 months the out pouring of love, support, prayers and genorisity has been over whelming and the The Crabbe Family is so appreciative words are not enough. We did everything we could to live day to day with all the ups and downs, everyone else took care of every last need. We did not have to worry about anything but the health and well being of our son. With that said, we are here to say that we love all of you and cannot thank you enough. We have such a respect for everyone and we love you all!
Justin and I return to Bethesda Sunday March 4th. We have enjoyed our leave but are actually excited about returning to therapy! Justin will be advancing into his larger legs and knees... This is a very exciting time, look forward to future pictures! I will chronicle the great progress he makes. We plan on being in Maryland till the end of the year. Stay tuned on our progress.. We appreciate that everyone enjoys the blog and I look forward to updating everyone over the next few months..
Justin and I are going to try for leave to come home for the March 17th Dinner, dance, auction... Everyone please say a prayer that his leave will be approved. We all want for him to be able to attend! The fact of the matter is Justin is still on active duty as a United States Marine following all the Marine rules even though he is a wounded warrior! He stills reports for duty everyday Mon-Fri. He has formation and must wear his PT gear or uniform. He is still a Marine must follow all the rules of the military. As much as I would love to sneak him home without anyone knowing, I cannot do that without all the proper approvals so keep those prayers coming.
We look forward to seeing everyone at the dinner, dance, and auction at the Double Tree Hotel. Just a reminder all and reservations and money are due by March 1st!
Next update hopefully will be new legs and knees! Have a great week, be safe, be happy and remain positive! Love and hugs to all, The Crabbe Family!
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Back from the Islands
Justin and I are back from Hawaii! We had a wonderful trip. When we arrived at the airport the CO, Captain Richie, set up a homecoming and allowed all the boys to meet us at the airport. We were greeted by Echo Marines, wives, girlfriends, children, etc. Justin and Mike were so excited to see "their boys". It was great for them to be reunited because they had not seen each other since being injured. After the airport homecoming we headed to our hotel. We had a beautiful two bedroom, two bathroom suite (Thanks to a wonderful family member who is a travel agent). It was absolutely beautiful with 4 balconies, we had ocean views and views of diamond head! We were living like kings and queens on the 40th floor!
Saturday night was the Warrior Ball and the boys looked so handsome in their dress blues. During the speech given by a General he talked about Justin, Mike, and Murphy and everyone gave them a standing ovation. It was definitely an emotional moment and of course I could not hold back the tears. The boys had a great time at the ball catching up with their buddies. There was lots of laughter, drinking, and a few tears! Overall the trip was great minus almost missing our flight to hawaii because of construction and elevators being broken at LAX. Thankfully coming home was less stressful and TSA helped us out tremendously.
While we were in Hawaii it was my 25th birthday so the boys took me out to dinner and we had a great time. I could not believe the generosity of people. The table next to us bought our first round of drinks (there was 5 of us total). Then when we tried to pay our bill our waitress asked us if we were celebrities because her other table paid for our entire bill. We couldn't believe it and thankfully we were able to catch the men to thank them before they left. While we wanted to thank them they just wanted to thank Justin and Mike for everything they had done. Then while we were finishing our dessert another table bought us another round of drinks and left our waitress $60 for additional drinks. We were blown away by everyone being so generous.
We are so thankful both Justin and Mike were healthy enough to fly and we had no complications or problems with the trip. Justin has two more weeks left of leave so he is enjoying being home. Today Justin became the proud owner of a new F-150! Thanks to the VA and the Semper Fi Fund who assisted him in buying his new truck. He will be taking the truck back to Maryland so all the adaptations/hand controls can be modified. (Its still up in the air if we will have it shipped or if dad will drive it back) When he gets back to Maryland he will begin his driving classes and then he can drive his truck around. Justin has been looking forward to getting this truck since before deployment.
Thank you again for the continued prayers, love, and support! We are so thankful Justin is doing so well and so far is heart is not having any problems. The medicine is really working so we are hoping to avoid the surgery all together. When he gets back to Maryland he will be seeing his cardiologist and having another Echocardiogram done to confirm the medicine is working. We are so happy to be back home as a family and enjoying the time together. Mom and Justin will be living in Maryland and dad and I will be living here in California. So we are enjoying these next two weeks of being together as a family.
Please continue to pray for all the troops still fighting for us. Especially our cousin Cody who will be deploying again in the next few months. Please keep him and his unit in your prayers as they prepare for deployment.
Airport Homecoming
Saturday night was the Warrior Ball and the boys looked so handsome in their dress blues. During the speech given by a General he talked about Justin, Mike, and Murphy and everyone gave them a standing ovation. It was definitely an emotional moment and of course I could not hold back the tears. The boys had a great time at the ball catching up with their buddies. There was lots of laughter, drinking, and a few tears! Overall the trip was great minus almost missing our flight to hawaii because of construction and elevators being broken at LAX. Thankfully coming home was less stressful and TSA helped us out tremendously.
While we were in Hawaii it was my 25th birthday so the boys took me out to dinner and we had a great time. I could not believe the generosity of people. The table next to us bought our first round of drinks (there was 5 of us total). Then when we tried to pay our bill our waitress asked us if we were celebrities because her other table paid for our entire bill. We couldn't believe it and thankfully we were able to catch the men to thank them before they left. While we wanted to thank them they just wanted to thank Justin and Mike for everything they had done. Then while we were finishing our dessert another table bought us another round of drinks and left our waitress $60 for additional drinks. We were blown away by everyone being so generous.
We are so thankful both Justin and Mike were healthy enough to fly and we had no complications or problems with the trip. Justin has two more weeks left of leave so he is enjoying being home. Today Justin became the proud owner of a new F-150! Thanks to the VA and the Semper Fi Fund who assisted him in buying his new truck. He will be taking the truck back to Maryland so all the adaptations/hand controls can be modified. (Its still up in the air if we will have it shipped or if dad will drive it back) When he gets back to Maryland he will begin his driving classes and then he can drive his truck around. Justin has been looking forward to getting this truck since before deployment.
Thank you again for the continued prayers, love, and support! We are so thankful Justin is doing so well and so far is heart is not having any problems. The medicine is really working so we are hoping to avoid the surgery all together. When he gets back to Maryland he will be seeing his cardiologist and having another Echocardiogram done to confirm the medicine is working. We are so happy to be back home as a family and enjoying the time together. Mom and Justin will be living in Maryland and dad and I will be living here in California. So we are enjoying these next two weeks of being together as a family.
Please continue to pray for all the troops still fighting for us. Especially our cousin Cody who will be deploying again in the next few months. Please keep him and his unit in your prayers as they prepare for deployment.
The boys out one night
Ball Photos!
Our Hotel Room
Our amazing view
The full ocean view from Justin and Mikes balcony
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Cleared for Hawaii!
The last few weeks have been busy but here is recap on how Justin is doing:
He decided to go with the conservative method and take the medication for his heart condition instead of having the surgery. The medicine is working and relieved all of his symptoms. The Cardiologist have ran multiple tests to confirm the medicine is helping with inflammation around his heart. They also wanted to rule out another condition they were suspicious about because it showed up on his EKG. Thankfully that test was done this week to stress out and his heart and it did not show up again. So they have ruled out that particular syndrome. He also had his pins removed in his left hand. He was thrilled to finally get those out.
Justin is continuing to impress his therapists by making tons of progress in therapy. Going to therapy with him this past week I could see how much progress he has made. He is getting so much stronger and walking better and better every day. This past week he was excited because he got carbon fiber legs (which are lighter and less bulky). He is hoping to get his "knees" in maybe another month/month and a half. Sometime in March he will probably have hopefully his finally surgery to have the HO bone in his leg removed. He wanted to wait until after Hawaii so he can walk while he is there.
SO the great news is Justin and his friend Mike are both cleared for Hawaii! The three of us will be going next Thursday for six days. We are all looking forward to this trip. Justin and Mike can't wait to see all their guys. I will definitely blog about our trip and post lots of pictures when we return. I think Justin and Mike are ready to get out of Bethesda for a week. Thankfully though the winter has been very mild back there. We only had snow one day and it wasn't a lot.
Thank you again for everything and the continued prayers. The heart problem had us all scared and worried. The prayers again have come through and once again Justin ended up with the best outcome!
If you would like to send mail please send it to this address:
Corporal Justin Crabbe
Warrior Transition Battalion
Box 20098
8901 Wisconsin Ave
Bethesda MD 20889-5600
Corporal Justin Crabbe
Warrior Transition Battalion
Box 20098
8901 Wisconsin Ave
Bethesda MD 20889-5600
We still have mail going to the Navy Lodge and the post office is not happy with us because they have to keep sorting it out. Thank you again!
Justin doing exercises!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)