A photo released by the office of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords shows Rep. Giffords husband Mark Kelly watching the State of The Union speech while holding his wife's hand in her hospital room in Houston Tuesday Jan. 25, 2010.The Associated Press/The Associated Press
After much speculation, astronaut Mark Kelly will fly the space shuttle in April, NASA announced late Friday morning.
By all accounts it was not an easy decision to make. As he resumes training next week, the 46-year-old Endeavour commander will be spending less time with his wife, U.S. congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, as she recovers from a gunshot wound to the head.
The actual mission will take two weeks.
Mr. Kelly will be announcing his decision at a NASA press conference at 3 p.m. EST.
It's an agonizing choice that resonates with anyone dealing with a severely ill family member. When is it okay to resume your life? When do you put it all on hold? And the stakes are that much higher when the life you're going back to involves a high degree of danger.
United States Senator Bill Nelson, a friend and former astronaut, told ABC News it was reasonable to expect that Mr. Kelly will be on board. Mr. Nelson said he spoke with Mr. Kelly Thursday morning and, based on the progress Ms. Giffords has made, he thought Mr. Kelly would choose to be part of the shuttle crew.
For Mr. Kelly, a major factor appears to have been whether Ms. Giffords, who was shot as she was greeting constituents outside a Tucson, Ariz., grocery store on Jan. 8, would be well enough that he could leave her side without constant worry. But this also represents his last opportunity to fly in a shuttle mission, as NASA winds down the program this summer, and may be his last chance to go to space.
"The question is, is she improving enough so that he does not need to be by her side every day in order for her to continue the improvement? While he's training, she is right there in Houston. He'll still be able to see her," Mr. Nelson said.
As patients who have suffered a serious health trauma begin to recover, some family members can find it hard to put the sense of crisis management behind them, experts say. For many patients, while family is key to their recovery, they may not need daily visits.
Peel police officer Mark Oberhauser says he came to this realization while recovering from a severe brain injury he sustained after being T-boned by a transport truck six years ago. After coming out of a coma, he was moved to the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute for a nine-week summer stay.
When one of his brothers suggested staying with him instead of leaving town to pursue a master's degree in the fall, Mr. Oberhauser recalls telling him, 'No way.'
"In life there's only so much you can do, it's not right to delay your own life. It wouldn't have been fair to him."
The Giffords-Kelly situation strikes a chord with Mr. Oberhauser. His advice to anyone going through this: "They should not feel guilty continuing with their life. It wouldn't be fair for either person not to. Don't let my injury be an obstacle for you."
But it can be confusing for family members to move from the kind of initial crisis management mode into the often lengthy recovery process, says Cathie Percival, a social worker in the acquired brain injury program at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute.
This is when guilt can easily crop up. "The human capacity to experience guilt is virtually unlimited," she says. There can be survivor guilt, too.
Another major factor in the decision-making process will be the dynamics of the family before the accident and whether it's a family that's equipped to "stick handle their way through it."
In the Giffords case, Ms. Percival says one key in Mr. Kelly's decision making would be whether they had discussed what to do in scenarios like this.
"It's good to know generally what people's attitudes are. She may have told him, 'If anything comes up, you should go ahead,'" she says.
It's the kind of understanding that Becky Rippel, who runs a mountain climbing outfit out of Nelson, B.C., with her husband Tim, says has kept her marriage healthy. Mr. Rippel climbs Everest and other mountains regularly while Ms. Rippel runs Peak Freak Expeditions at home. She knows he would scale down a mountain the moment she asks, but so far, she's never asked him to.
A year ago, she had a stress-related illness and when he offered to stay behind, she insisted he go. She even avoided telling him about a few details, such as her high blood pressure.
"I didn't want him to worry. Which would make me worry."
What's more, like Mr. Oberhauser, she says she knew it was really her job to get better.
"I pull out my strong cards when he's not around. If he's here I lean on him. When he's not, I'm the strongest I can be."
If she were Ms. Giffords, she says, "I wouldn't want him doting on me. I'd want professionals taking care of me and his emotions not dragging me down. I'd see him worrying."
While he has not revealed whether he and his wife have been able to have a conversation about his decision, Mr. Kelly said Thursday that her condition continues to improve. "Every day she gets a little bit better, and the neurosurgeons and neurologists tell me that that's a great sign. The slope of that curve is very important."
Early in his decision-making process, Mr. Kelly hinted at how torn he was. In an interview with a British paper, he said, "My number one priority is her. Ideally I'll have this discussion with her, I'll consider what she says, hopefully we can make this discussion jointly. But I get the final say on this one."
With a file from The Associated Press