Dear Friends,
As many of you know, on August 22, 2010, our brother Andy Bridge's life changed forever. He suffered a severe spinal cord injury after falling three stories in an apartment building in Chicago. He was visiting the city for a follow-up interview at Northwestern Hospital where he hoped to start practicing Dermatology this Fall. After several days of intensive care and surgery, it became clear that outside of a miracle, Andy's chances of walking again were remote. Andy has begun the very long process of recovery and rehabilitation, and continues to receive outpatient care at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.
Andy's road to recovery is a long one, full of challenges, new-found struggles and pain each day. While Andy is developing the skills necessary to live independently, he is also persevering through the great emotional hardship of accepting his new reality. In addition to this physical and emotional adversity, Andy's cost of living has greatly increased. His daily care expenses, large hospital bills and long-term equipment costs are very significant.
Through the amazing outpouring of love from his family and friends, a trust fund has been set up in Andy's name to help offset these expenses. So many of you have expressed a desire to help, and we have come up with a way that you can do just that. Before Andy's accident he was an avid runner, having completed many races including a marathon (in France!) and several half-marathons. In his honor, we (Andy's sister Lauren, brother-in-law Jon, Aunt Cathy, cousin Bart, and hopefully others!) have decided to run the Indianapolis half-marathon - the Indy Mini. This is a race Andy has run several times while living in Indianapolis the last 10 years. We have created this blog to be a "training log" and a sponsor site for all who wish to participate in Andy's story.
Our goal is to raise $5,000 by May 7th, 2011 - race day. This seems like a huge amount of money to us, but it is merely a drop in the bucket for what Andy needs. Our hope and prayer is that we will all learn through this process the beauty of giving our resources away for another. Would you consider joining us on this journey and helping us run for Andy?
With gratitude and hope,
Lauren and Jon Thompson
