A city councilmember rarely gets an enthusiastic round of applause for simply attending a meeting.

But Councilmember Marikay Abuzuaiter received that warm welcome when she appeared on the screens in the Katie Dorsett Council Chamber at the Tuesday, April 5 meeting.

Abuzuaiter attended the meeting virtually from home, but the April 6 meeting was the first she had officially attended since Feb. 17.  Abuzuaiter did watch the City Council retreat on March 23 and 24, but was unable to participate because the meeting was held at the ACC Hall of Champions at the Greensboro Coliseum Complex and was not set up for virtual participation.

At the end of the meeting during the period set aside for councilmember comments, Councilmember Abuzuaiter was called on first and said, “I want to thank everyone for reaching out.  The emergency surgery I had only a very few people survive.  So I am blessed beyond measure.  I want to thank my council colleagues who reached out and were worried.  I want to thank everyone for the prayers and phone calls reaching out with the food, flowers and everything else. Luckily, apparently I’m pretty strong because the doctors have given me a 100 percent recovery prognosis, which is absolutely unheard of for this situation.  I had a diverticula rupture in my stomach and I was in septic shock.  I was in a coma for four days and I’m just very thankful.  So, I want to thank each and every one of you who reached out and who kept me in your prayers and hopefully in a couple of weeks I’ll be close to 100 percent.  As you can tell my brain is on overdrive.  I’m wanting to get back to activities as quickly as I can but my body is still saying 33 days in the hospital, you need a little more time to recover. So thank you to each and every one of you.”

Abuzuaiter said that she had been working from home and would continue to do what she could, but looked forward to getting back to city hall.

Abuzuaiter concluded her statement saying, “I’m very thankful. I feel my time on this Earth is not done yet, so I’m ready to move forward. So thank you all so much.

Abuzuaiter became ill on a trip to the Outer Banks and spent her 33 days in the hospital in Washington, NC.