This Update is for March 10 2008
Dear friends and family,
I'll get to Danny's news in a moment, but first Lynn and I want to ask you all to take a moment to say a prayer or send a good thought to our dear friend Margaret Ayers who is on life support in a local hospital due to a severe infection in her digestive tract. Maggie, you'll recall, and her colleague Penny Montgomery, have been using their EEG machine to help Danny with bio-neurofeedback since just after his accident. For two and a half years our "fairy Godmothers", Maggie and Penny, have made dozens of visits, often driving an hour or more each direction, to help Danny's brain improve. They have been a steady source of love and support and have become family for us.
Having seen the effects your prayers and/or positive thoughts have had on Danny's recovery and in buoying our spirits, I ask that you join us in wishing Maggie a full recovery. Thanks.
As for Danny: thankfully, blessedly, for the past four weeks he's been free of the stomach cramps and sweats that made life so difficult in December and January. He's been relaxed and sleeping soundly. These days, as I told a friend recently, that's all I want out of life. Last week I asked Danny, "Are you still happy?" He touched "Yes". He's never touched "No" yet.
We have no idea what caused his discomfort. We tried various remedies and measures but we'll never know what worked the cure. At this point, we don't care...we're just grateful. His work on the therapy table is improving as he gets stronger and gains back some of the weight he lost. So thank you very much to all who offered prayers, love and good thoughts.
Our friend Jerry Hylander brought over the Brainfingers machine a few weeks ago and the results have been encouraging. Wearing a headband with sensors, Danny works at making a computer cursor go up and down by contracting or relaxing facial muscles. Having tried it myself and watched various friends struggle to make it work, I can tell you it's not easy. But playing the ancient computer game "Pong", Danny clearly tries to make his "paddle" go up and down in pursuit of the "ball", often scoring batches of points before he tires.
An easier exercise for him is called the "Grow Game", in which multi- colored concentric circles appear and expand and cause musical notes to sound. As the jaw tenses, the circles increase and the notes rise in pitch. Relaxing the jaw, the circles decrease and the notes descend the scale. In this way, the user can actually compose a tune. Danny really seems to enjoy it. For minutes at a time, he focuses intently and we hear lots of sounds. When he gets tired, the screen goes blank and the room is quiet for a while, then he starts up again.
He's also working on a feature that allows the user to make a voice say "YES" or "NO" by tensing when one or the other word lights up on the screen. With practice, we hope that one day he'll be able to give us rapid answers to our questions.
Ideally, once the vertical movements of the cursor are mastered, he can learn to make it go horizontally by shifting his gaze to the left or right. If he can manage both operations, he'll be able to operate a keyboard and spell sentences. Danny's a long way from getting to that point, but we'll take it as we always do: day by day, moment by moment.
On February 24th, we took Danny to the Meher Baba Center of Los Angeles for the first time since his accident. There was a celebration underway for Baba's birthday (Feb. 25th would have been his 114th) and over a hundred people were having lunch when Danny made his surprise entrance. The reunion with so many friends who'd watched him grow up and had been praying constantly for him generated lots of joy, tears, hugs, kisses and shouts of "Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai". The love, human and divine, was overwhelming.
This past Saturday night (March 8th) Danny had another outing, this time back to Kevin Halcomb's garage, where Danny and his friends spent hundreds of hours hanging out and playing music. While Danny visited with ten of his pals, Kevin's parents laid out a great BBQ dinner for us all. Last year, when Danny returned to Kevin's for the first time since the accident, Danny slept most of the night. This year he was awake, alert and taking everything in.
That night, when he was back in bed, Lynn told him, "Danny, your friends love you a lot," and he responded with a sweet smile. Indeed. Thank you all.
Love, Jeff
"I have come into this world to see this: the sword drop from men's hands even at the height of their arc of anger because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound and it is His - the Christ's, our Beloved's." - Hafiz, a 14th century Persian poet
Attached are two photos taken in Kevin's garage Saturday night; and one of Danny working on the Brainfingers machine with Jerry Hylander.
Dear friends and family,
I'll get to Danny's news in a moment, but first Lynn and I want to ask you all to take a moment to say a prayer or send a good thought to our dear friend Margaret Ayers who is on life support in a local hospital due to a severe infection in her digestive tract. Maggie, you'll recall, and her colleague Penny Montgomery, have been using their EEG machine to help Danny with bio-neurofeedback since just after his accident. For two and a half years our "fairy Godmothers", Maggie and Penny, have made dozens of visits, often driving an hour or more each direction, to help Danny's brain improve. They have been a steady source of love and support and have become family for us.
Having seen the effects your prayers and/or positive thoughts have had on Danny's recovery and in buoying our spirits, I ask that you join us in wishing Maggie a full recovery. Thanks.
As for Danny: thankfully, blessedly, for the past four weeks he's been free of the stomach cramps and sweats that made life so difficult in December and January. He's been relaxed and sleeping soundly. These days, as I told a friend recently, that's all I want out of life. Last week I asked Danny, "Are you still happy?" He touched "Yes". He's never touched "No" yet.
We have no idea what caused his discomfort. We tried various remedies and measures but we'll never know what worked the cure. At this point, we don't care...we're just grateful. His work on the therapy table is improving as he gets stronger and gains back some of the weight he lost. So thank you very much to all who offered prayers, love and good thoughts.
Our friend Jerry Hylander brought over the Brainfingers machine a few weeks ago and the results have been encouraging. Wearing a headband with sensors, Danny works at making a computer cursor go up and down by contracting or relaxing facial muscles. Having tried it myself and watched various friends struggle to make it work, I can tell you it's not easy. But playing the ancient computer game "Pong", Danny clearly tries to make his "paddle" go up and down in pursuit of the "ball", often scoring batches of points before he tires.
An easier exercise for him is called the "Grow Game", in which multi- colored concentric circles appear and expand and cause musical notes to sound. As the jaw tenses, the circles increase and the notes rise in pitch. Relaxing the jaw, the circles decrease and the notes descend the scale. In this way, the user can actually compose a tune. Danny really seems to enjoy it. For minutes at a time, he focuses intently and we hear lots of sounds. When he gets tired, the screen goes blank and the room is quiet for a while, then he starts up again.
He's also working on a feature that allows the user to make a voice say "YES" or "NO" by tensing when one or the other word lights up on the screen. With practice, we hope that one day he'll be able to give us rapid answers to our questions.
Ideally, once the vertical movements of the cursor are mastered, he can learn to make it go horizontally by shifting his gaze to the left or right. If he can manage both operations, he'll be able to operate a keyboard and spell sentences. Danny's a long way from getting to that point, but we'll take it as we always do: day by day, moment by moment.
On February 24th, we took Danny to the Meher Baba Center of Los Angeles for the first time since his accident. There was a celebration underway for Baba's birthday (Feb. 25th would have been his 114th) and over a hundred people were having lunch when Danny made his surprise entrance. The reunion with so many friends who'd watched him grow up and had been praying constantly for him generated lots of joy, tears, hugs, kisses and shouts of "Avatar Meher Baba Ki Jai". The love, human and divine, was overwhelming.
This past Saturday night (March 8th) Danny had another outing, this time back to Kevin Halcomb's garage, where Danny and his friends spent hundreds of hours hanging out and playing music. While Danny visited with ten of his pals, Kevin's parents laid out a great BBQ dinner for us all. Last year, when Danny returned to Kevin's for the first time since the accident, Danny slept most of the night. This year he was awake, alert and taking everything in.
That night, when he was back in bed, Lynn told him, "Danny, your friends love you a lot," and he responded with a sweet smile. Indeed. Thank you all.
Love, Jeff
"I have come into this world to see this: the sword drop from men's hands even at the height of their arc of anger because we have finally realized there is just one flesh to wound and it is His - the Christ's, our Beloved's." - Hafiz, a 14th century Persian poet
Attached are two photos taken in Kevin's garage Saturday night; and one of Danny working on the Brainfingers machine with Jerry Hylander.
