Cheryl Haugo and Mark Haugo

00:06 My name is Cheryl how go I'm 59 years old for a little while longer. It is Wednesday November 20th 2019. We're in Yuma, Arizona and I'm interviewing my husband Mark John, howco.

00:24 My name is murder home.

00:32 I'm 16 years old.

00:36 Wednesday New Orleans weather

00:39 Olympian

00:43 You are a juror.

00:47 The Preserve in finding who is my wife

00:56 Film reel

01:00 Okay, so just to give some people a little history. We were married in 1984 and moved to Yuma in 1986.

01:13 On May 14th 1990 you were on your motorcycle going to work and we're hit by a semi-truck which ran a stop sign at the time your wildland firefighter for the government.

01:28 You were in a pretty deep, and you spent a year in the hospital a little bit more than a year in a coma rehab center about 250 miles away from home.

01:41 Our town you are not only my hero, but you're also the hero of many people in our community.

01:49 How do you do it John?

02:08 Is focus

02:18 Person first persons first and see kind of keep your your sights on what you got to do. Right so cuz like everyday just getting up and getting dressed taking a shower. That's a couple of hours of work right to decide. How do you spell motivated?

02:59 No one lives forever.

03:04 Going to her.

03:07 So to give up would be to lose to Lose to Win.

03:15 How do you keep some positive attitude that you have?

03:27 Google

03:30 Hey, I was just going to have a really good sense of humor. You.

03:39 Yeah.

03:40 So how do you maintain your faith in light of the situation that you're in having lost what you lost?

03:54 Please do who's the Bible?

04:15 Rosary prayer Pal versus form so that helps you keep focused.

04:24 I see you reading the Bible almost every day.

04:29 I wish I had that kind of time.

04:33 So during your year in the hospital, I watched you go from being in a coma and being able to do some stuff.

04:46 To being able to do quite a lot and when you came home you were still in a wheelchair.

04:56 But you were learning how to do more stuff more walking feeding yourself and things like to have two rooms down your own shoes. Yeah.

05:07 Is a pretty long year when you're in the hospital, do you remember any of that? What do you remember?

05:16 Uncle's house

05:20 Over for dinner food

05:29 Went to the zoo went to the zoo so animals and so bad and

05:36 Wolves now

05:39 Those kind of late late in the hospital stay you don't remember anything about

05:46 Early on huh?

05:51 Not really.

05:53 No, it's probably a good thing.

05:57 Least that's the way I feel about it was a rough year.

06:06 Well, but it was a pretty hard year for for me. I had to drive back and forth to Phoenix, which is quite a drive so I should leave work.

06:22 Go feed our animals. We have a little little farm.

06:26 And head out of town Monday night.

06:31 Be to the hospital by about midnight.

06:36 And then spend two days visiting and drive back.

06:42 And so I didn't get to spend as much time with you mark John as I would have liked to.

06:47 But I was there as much as I could be I was grateful to have people who are covering for me at work.

06:56 One of the local veterinarians. Dr. Took only emergency calls while I was gone. And that was really helpful, but it was tough. It was was hard to hard to watch her to participate.

07:14 A lot of

07:16 A lot of mental anguish

07:20 But it was was all for a good purpose.

07:24 And I was not about to give up.

07:28 Just like you you aren't giving up either.

07:33 When you did finally come home.

07:36 You still didn't really remember that all who I was.

07:41 And so we would talk and I pull out the photo album and we talked about her past and getting married in our future.

07:56 How did that feel for you?

08:01 Ameris

08:05 Real red. I wish I could fly then we were and it seemed like every time you take a nap or fall asleep. You'd kind of forget more and then have to remember it again, and it was kind of hard to watch you be so sad and scared and embarrassed.

08:29 But then one day

08:32 I do want to find you. Where do you find where they find you? You're my you're my hoe girl. That's pretty neat. I was like, yeah.

08:47 And then what did you say?

08:50 Do you remember?

08:53 He said he was getting married.

08:56 And I said, well we kind of already are right.

09:02 And then you said

09:04 What's just do it again?

09:08 So we had a November wedding to go along with our June wedding.

09:14 And we went to that rehab center where you were.

09:19 And all the doctors and nurses were yapping Phoenix the doctors and nurses were pretty pretty impressed with how far you've come.

09:29 It kind of turns out nobody really expected you to do anyting.

09:40 Well, they didn't think you were going to die. But I think they did pretty much thought you'd end up in a nursing home.

09:48 Yeah, but they don't know you well, they didn't know. Yeah, they do now.

09:54 So, what do you remember about getting married again repeating our vows?

10:10 Love you, too.

10:16 So

10:18 Since then

10:20 You giving back to our community is part of what makes you one of our heroes here.

10:26 In spite of what you can't do.

10:30 You do what you can write so you've been you've been a volunteer at your old work?

10:38 At the library

10:41 At the Lutheran School Salvation Army

10:46 And now you do laundry at my office.

10:50 You're my laundry, man.

10:53 So what's your favorite volunteer gig?

11:01 You like doing laundry?

11:05 Oh, you better not let everybody know that.

11:12 Sue

11:14 What would you like to say to people who might be struggling with brain injury don't give up.

11:23 What about disability? I mean to improve over you and get up either.

11:33 It's pretty easy to say.

11:37 But when it takes you an hour to turn on a light switch

11:48 Her takes 3 hours to get dressed in the morning.

11:54 Did you tell him or TJ to say?

12:01 You say maybe focus on what you can do to celebrate your victories.

12:13 Pretty blessed to have you still in my life to go.

12:20 I feel like we got a second chance.

12:29 Frantically

12:35 Yeah, it was a was pretty scary there for a while.

12:44 This is probably a good thing.

12:50 I remember when you first came home and I had to had to build some sidewalks, you know, cuz we didn't have sidewalks in the backyard for your wheelchair.

13:02 And I remember the very first day.

13:06 I turned my back on you and you went rolling down the sidewalk and fell right off of it.

13:14 Into the dirt and you were laughing your head off and I was like, oh my God, they're going to take you away from me.

13:22 Adult Protective Services is going to come and just take you away and you're just laughing.

13:30 You have a really good sense of humor.

13:35 Do you think that helps you a lot? I think so.

13:41 You make lemonade out of lemons, right?

13:49 There anything else you want to say?

13:59 Anything you want people to know about you?

14:12 Keep going. Keep going.

14:18 That's your motto.

14:21 How good man?

14:29 That's what they said when you were carrying the torch for the Olympics how go man how go man.

14:39 That's pretty neat.

14:46 Can I you?

14:48 He did a good job carrying that torch.

14:55 Is a proud moment for me to watch you do that, but it was a proud moment for you for what?

15:04 You still have the torch?

15:12 So you talked about how you both got?

15:18 I say we remarried.

15:22 And you asked

15:26 What march on remembered of the vowels?

15:30 Do you want to share anything that you said on that day when we got married the second time when we repeat our vows cuz we were told you can't get married again cuz you're already married.

15:44 But

15:47 We

15:49 We pretty much just repeated the same Bowser we had before under different circumstances. So we had dr.

16:02 Who would wanted to be our Minister the first one, but you going to come?

16:08 And we played

16:11 Teen Wolf music

16:14 I'm just repeated the same basic vows.

16:20 But it was

16:23 Spray special

16:28 I was nice to have a wedding that you could remember now. You probably do remember the old one. Yeah.

16:37 But back then you didn't.

16:46 So we get to have two anniversaries.

16:51 Do you celebrate both?

16:53 We did for a long time, but we haven't lately been celebrating the November one so much.

17:01 Probably should get back to that.

17:06 The the second one.

17:10 The first one

17:13 Used to be back until they were around we were our

17:17 Wedding clothes every anniversary

17:20 I can still wear my dress but Mark John's clothes are threads.

17:26 So why you are warm all the time?

17:32 We don't do that anymore. Plus you never knew. What year was.

17:38 From the picture until after the accident.

17:48 We have beef PA before accident.

17:57 Is there anything else you want to talk about anything you want to ask me?

18:12 I give you a baby.

18:18 Connection. Can I ask you a question?

18:25 Pratt

18:29 Would you want to share things that you really like to do with Cheryl?

18:42 Like we still like to go rothenburg watching canoeing.

18:49 Only on the paddler

18:52 Murder house

19:01 Stars

19:05 Health leaders in news

19:11 The eclipse eclipses

19:15 What else?

19:20 There's lots of stuff we do together still cooking. I like to cook you like to eat.

19:40 Naked cheese

19:45 My house

19:47 Music music

19:53 Is Lucy Liu gay WC?

20:08 Building stuff. I like to build stuff.

20:18 Do you think more when we walk out the door?

20:25 Yes course.

20:36 Awfully grateful that you came back to me.

20:46 The doctors didn't give me a whole lot of hope that I pretty much told them that they didn't know you.

20:59 They were wrong.

21:03 They did Ronnie Strong, or maybe they were just being cautious Anna.

21:10 BMW not getting people's hopes up too much.

21:17 Did you ever lose hope Cheryl, you know, I don't know if I would say I lost hope.

21:24 But I'd say there were some times when I was sure wondering.

21:30 Not so much.

21:35 If you are going to get better, but how much better how how far could you get?

21:45 And what would that look like to us? Because there was no way you were going to be in a nursing home?

21:55 That just wasn't an option.

21:58 So, how could I make it work if you didn't get to an independent state or at least?

22:06 Hartley independence date was kind of wooming.

22:16 And you know, I didn't I didn't know I'd never been down this road before so I didn't really know.

22:25 What to expect

22:28 But the scariest part for me was when you didn't know.

22:32 Who I was I was pretty hard that I let you know they

22:40 The kind of help you learn that those things happen how permanent they might be is questionable.

22:55 But

22:58 You know, I tried my best to educate myself as to what I might expect.

23:07 And so

23:10 It was not a surprise that you didn't remember me kind of stomach a little bit when you remembered that goes. Do you remember me? Just a little just a little what's your dog's name? What's your cat's name? What's your goat's name? You got all those right? What's your wife's name?

23:35 Wife, I don't remember.

23:41 I know a little bit, you know, but

23:49 The things that you remember so Random

23:54 Because everybody's brain filing system is so different.

23:59 That was kind of scary.

24:02 Wasn't sure where that was going to go?

24:08 Sorry, no apologies necessary looking back. It's pretty funny.

24:16 My favorite part was when they would ask you what my birthday was and you'd get it wrong, but you got it wrong the right way cuz you got it the wrong way. You always thought it was and they let you know they're out there with their clipboards writing down.

24:35 And I was like no. No, that's right. That's the wrong day, but it's right in his mind.

24:43 Cuz he only keep track of those things.

24:46 Remember my birthday, but you didn't remember me.

24:51 Makes no sense at all.

25:00 But the time

25:03 Yeah, there was no way you were going to be in a nursing home.

25:07 So

25:09 I figured it out it didn't we?

25:11 Men At Work

25:18 Been a pretty interesting but terrifying ride.

25:25 I was with you. I've been blessed by you.

25:36 In my soulmate

25:41 Nevermind

25:51 Anything else

25:56 Play Steve Jenna. I don't know.

26:12 Play Johnny O.

26:16 Is there

26:18 Pacific Park

26:21 Reverse that you like to read a lot.

26:33 He used to like to read the book of Jobe a lot may be kind of identified with him a little.

26:50 Doughboys of the one that God gave a lot of challenges to because he was a firm believer and Satan challenge God to try to do things that would

27:08 Turn joke against God.

27:12 He gave him boils and he took away his family and he

27:17 She did all kinds of things.

27:21 My guess maybe Satan did those things.

27:24 But anyway, Jobe lost his family got boils. He his house burned down.

27:31 All this bad stuff happened, but yet Jobe maintained his face.

27:37 And did not curse God.

27:44 Kind of a bad things happen to good people mentality.

27:52 Even when all his friends were saying look at this bad stuff that's happening to you. Don't you want to curse God?

28:10 Chinese three, Job Lot

28:15 There was a guy who used to rule the world.

28:23 He

28:25 Open said I like you like and you job.

28:34 Italy

28:37 Be there for her.

28:45 He was a good friend who knew you well.

28:55 EBay swag usual

29:11 Anything else

29:16 Still got a few minutes 10 minutes.

29:33 Can I have any other questions?

29:38 I don't have anything more on my scribble list.

29:44 Have anything you want to ask me?

29:55 Electrical estimator

30:02 Nice roulette theater nothing in your scribble list either.

30:09 And then I guess we're done.

30:15 Yes.

30:16 I will walk out the door and think of something.

30:20 Worse

30:23 Girl

30:27 Turn it off.