January 26th, 2011 by Conor

Last night was the first night i got a full nights sleep. We aren’t allowed with Danny past 11pm so from here on out we might be able to get some rest. I saw Danny this morning and he is looking amazing! It is such a great feeling to see how much he is improving knowing that every time i go in to see him he improves a little bit more. It’s hard to see the frustration in his eyes, but if he only knew how much progress he has made in the past 3 weeks he is doing unbelievable!

Today when i saw Danny the swelling in his eye had gone down considerably, and i could actually see his right eyeball again. Some nurses came in and informed us that Danny would be working on walking shortly and that the trachea in his neck would be coming out later in the day. Great news was coming from all over! To Danny he is fighting an impossible battle, but to us he is making huge leaps ad bounds. Each day brings a new obstacle for Danny to overcome and with each obstacle Danny faces a new challenge. He may not realize how much progress he is making but to us he is absolutely crushing his own personal competition.

Since i arrived here in Great Falls on Sunday, Danny has been through so many different phases in his healing process. At first you never knew what to expect from him. There were constant up and downs and frequent confusion during conversation and communication. You weren’t sure how Danny would react to the things you said to him or activities you’d try to involve him in. Now with each time I see him I notice more and more of his old self coming back. The thought of this constantly brightens my outlook on the situation, but the frustration that you see in his eyes is extremely discouraging. Holding back tears can sometimes be difficult watching Danny trying to perform simple tasks like turning the pages of a, “get well scrapbook,” or even just breathing sometimes. Watching him constantly fight internal battles of confusion as to why he can’t perform the mindless tasks that everyone around him do with such ease almost makes you feel guilty.

I see the frustration building up more and more in everyone here. For those who have been here the longest feel it the most. Everyone has the best intentions for Danny but no one can make him get better. It is a long hard battle for Danny and all we can really do is be there for him when he needs us the most. Tensions can run high when multiple doctors and nurses are giving several diagnoses to multiple family members who are doing all they can to support their loved one. Weeks have been spent going from hotel to hospital and back again. Visitation hours are becoming limited so that Danny can have more time to rest and get better. This means that Danny is getting better, but also that spending time with Danny is becoming extinct.

Everyone has Danny’s well-being in their best intentions so everyone has their own opinion of what is best for Danny in this situation. People who have already been through this have a better understanding of how to cope with the situation. They’ve been through it and already know more of what to expect than those of us who are new to this. Those people who have never dealt with such a tragedy and never will should consider themselves lucky. This is not something i would ever wish upon anyone. It is hard on everyone here and a tough toll to pay after staying strong for so long.

It is more than just supporting Danny. There is a family here helping Danny too. His family has been here since the very beginning as well. They’ve all been here since the start going back and forth, day by day, from hotel to hospital and back again for weeks at a time. They’ve all been dealing with the stress of Danny’s well-being as well as the worry of how they can help continue the support from afar. This stress builds up and begins to chip away at you sometimes. No one here has been through this before which means that no one here is sure the best way to go about things. Everyone here, from what i have seen, is doing an unbelievable job at helping Danny and coping with this stress. It can get pretty crazy sometimes, but I know in the end everyone’s heart is in the right place.

Danny is a high paced, high energy type of person. He always needs to be doing something. If he could hop right up and walk out of here he would. His physical strength is unbelievable. He is healing physically at an unbelievable rate. Unfortunately for Danny, the brain tends to heal much slower than the rest of the body. Helping Danny understand that this will take time and to be patient is vital in the healing process. We need him to understand that following directions and taking things slowly is the best possible healing method. Right now it is easier for Danny to focus on one thing at a time. His brain has trouble processing multiple tasks which ends up frustrating him during this process. Danny tends to do better with one function at a time. When more than one task is involved he becomes frustrated and has a hard time focusing on what he is doing. His patience is on a short fuse and just about any type of frustration sets this off. The more Danny can focus on one thing at a time the sooner he can expand his healing and begin to multi-task. It is amazing that so many people are here to help support him, but I could see yesterday during his speech tests that there was an immense amount of pressure for him with 7 different sets of eyes in the room. Mix this with the drugs still left in his system from the surgery and it is easy to s why Danny would have a tough time. I know that with less stress and less people involved Danny’s progress will advance much quicker for him and so far today that really seems to be the case.

I am done for now, I’d like to continue this post but the buzz around the ICU lobby is that Danny is beginning to talk again. More to come soon…you truly are the man Danny.

-TommyJ

January 26th, 2011 by Conor

I wrote a quick lil blurb when I first heard about Danny’s accident. But when I was writing it…I really wasn’t sure what to say (and im still not sure now). So many thoughts and emotions had instantly filled my head. Since the web page went up…I have continually been on it…checking updates…reading memories…and trying to wrap a finger around my own feelings. I have known Danny since I was in 7th Grade…him in 8th…We used to hang around within the same circle. I have a lot of memories of Danny from back than…some involving Danny’s infamous laugh and others involving heart break from my huge crush on Danny and not having him all to myself. But I moved away from Conway when I graduated from Kennett…and lost touch with a lot of people (Danny being one of them)….some I don’t give a second thought (no names..but sorry its true)…others I wonder why I let this happen. When Danny got in this accident I could not come to grips with the fact that on multiple occasions I had accidentally “butt dialed” Danny’s phone number and frantically tried to hang up the phone as quickly as I could possibly move my fingers, in hopes he didn’t pick up. Now, I find out than Danny has been hurt….Night after night I would sit and wonder why the hell didn’t I just let it ring and let him pick up and explain it was an accident but let the catch up happen anyways…I got some good advice from a very noble man (Conor *cough cough*) who told me not to dwell on something like that and to just make sure that when Danny gets better and past all of this…to make sure I call him and say hello. I know this will be exactly what I will do. It is so sad that such a tragic event has to happen to make you realize these things…..

I am not a person to show any emotion…in any way…So words about this whole situation and how I felt wont come in this post. But there hasn’t been a day that I have gone without looking at the web page for updates on Danny’s progress…usually multiple times a day…I never wanted to miss a beat. The updates recently have been absolutely amazing. Danny is such a strong person and no one could have pulled through as quickly and as well as he is doing. Conor you are a hero to me. Danny is lucky to have such an amazing brother. Thank you so much for all you have done..its indescribable… and for keeping everyone updated on Danny’s progress. Michelle… I have never met you but I feel like in some way I know you now…as im sure many might say. But you are an amazing girlfriend and person all together. Danny, Conor, Michelle, and the Toumarkine family…you are in my thoughts and prayers every day. You have stuck in this incredibly tough situation (and still have a long ways to go) but you all have made it through the scariest part. Keep up the strength and determination. Danny is so very lucky to have a family like you right by his side.

January 26th, 2011 by Conor

“MOSS!!!!! FIRE!!!!!!!” Danny’s prank was belted throughout the Shreddy Times house at least five times a day. Like many jokes coming from Danny’s repertoire, this one never got old or stale; it continues to be as funny as the first time you heard it. Danny’s charismatic nature and outgoing personality were replaced by an eerie silence on January 3. It was a silence that I felt I shared alone, as I was the only one from the Shreddy house that could not make it on the Montana trip. I spent the majority of the next five days in the house—alone—unable to do much except go through the motions. I must say that it was one of the most surreal and lonely times of my life. We had gone from the excitement of the Ashton Kutcher tweet and the relentless snowboarding and laughing to a brick wall being laid upon us. I attempted to pull myself out of the depression with a sunny day of snowboarding but this too posed a problem. All of my snowboard gear from my boots to my outerwear, goggles, gloves, and even my helmet were all given to me by Danny. I am literally sponsored by Danny. Anyway, holding his helmet in my hands and imagining the situation he was in was just too brutal! I could not ride, and would not ride for ten days after his fall. I simply had no desire. Furthermore, unburying and snapping photos of the Toumarkines’ snowmobiles in order to sell them and cleaning out Danny’s room (now for rent) SUCKED!
Yesterday my good friends, Tito and Chris, and I made the 17 hour journey out to Montana from Tahoe. We were so stoked (and anxious) to finally see Danny. It feels like forever since our crew was together, and I’m so happy now that I got to see them all again. Finally!! Within five minutes of walking into 5109, Danny “broke” the silence as well as any anxiety that we may have had. As we all huddled around the bed to read a signed snowboard, Danny farted right in my direction. Needless to say we got a kick out of it. Danny didn’t laugh, but you know he would have were he capable. Although he is a long way from home and a long way from being better, I have no doubt that he will be back as the Danny we know. I never really did have any doubt. This accident has affected my life in many ways and will continue to do so. It has brought me closer to my friends and family, closer to Danny’s friends and family, and has reminded me that our time here is precious.

To Danny: be as patient as possible; this too shall pass. Godspeed with your recovery! Much love bro.

Ian McLeod

January 26th, 2011 by MIchelle

As you can tell by the frequent updates yesterday, a lot has happened since Danny got out of surgery. The day has been packed, but he managed to squeeze in some quality hang time with all of the new arrivals. The nurse helps him get out of bed and guides him to the rocking chair where Danny slowly rocks back and forth with the ambiance of a king. We all gather around and try to entertain Danny as best we can. Chris started a game of catch earlier and Danny sunk one into Ian’s hat from ten feet away with one eye closed, involuntarily swollen shut. A little while later he got up and out of his chair ready to get back into bed and probably would have had I not sounded the alarm to the nurse. He looked at me like, what the hell are you freaking out about? I’m just getting back into bed. Danny probably would have had no problem doing it on his own, but I’m still on my toes and keep a close eye on him even in a room full of people. Sometimes I feel annoying telling Danny not to pull his blood pressure cuff off, itch his stitches, or get out of bed all alone. He doesn’t listen to me at all anymore and I don’t enjoy telling him what to do so that’s fine with me.

If you read Tommy J’s post from yesterday, you may have noticed that he mentioned something along the lines of me not being all there intellectually (followed by the reassuring Just kidding in parenthesis). He also said that I was a lot smaller than he had expected, well…he’s a lot hairier than I had expected…from the ears down. From the photos of him I couldn’t tell how intense his beard actually is. David put it best today pointing out, “you have one thick beard, I mean the lord of the rings could be going on in there.” David and Tom are a part of a secret beard club. Once your beard is a certain length you are in the club whether you know it or not. Their beards have bonded them together on this visit like brothers. The beard is the topic of conversation that consumes 85% of their time spent together. The two beard club members talk about anything from how to trim the beard to the difference in consistency of their hair follicles. It’s entertaining when your slap happy and haven’t slept for 24 hours, to eavesdrop on the beard club daily discussion.

Today is a new day. Danny is up an walking again twice as far as he did yesterday. We brought him his shoes and he cruised to the end of the hall with a walker in front. Conor, Tom, David, and I watched Danny with so much excitement! Never thought I would be this happy watching Danny walk. He’ll be up and walking again this afternoon and he will also be getting his tracheostomy out! Today is a good day in room 5109. More to come…

-Michelle

January 25th, 2011 by Conor

We are all very comfortable with the idea that Danny is going to get through this. He will get out of this hospital. He will resume a normal life at some point in the future. Down the road he might even begin to remember what happened, although it is likely that he won’t.

The one part of this whole process that I have a hard time getting my head around is imagining that you woke up in absolute physical chaos. Why is there a tube going into my stomach and why won’t I be able to take it out for 4 more weeks. How come my skull looks like a set of railroad ties in the form of staples. Why have I been delt this hand? I would have happily folded this part of life if I had known it was coming.

No one knows why this happened to Danny or any of us for that matter. This might have physically happened to him but it happened to hundreds of people mentally. Everyone that has followed this story has had an understanding of what has happened, while it happened. Danny is the only one that has woken up and had to deal with this nightmare. On a daily basis I ask him how long he thinks he has been here. Guesses are just that. Guesses. Each time I tell him “nope try 22 days!” he looks very very surprised. Each time I know he wonders… What? How is that possible?

I can’t imagine having such a life changing moment that you have no knowledge of. Not a single person in the world will ever know what EXACTLY put Danny into this situation. Try to imagine another situation where that is possible. I sure as heck haven’t been able to figure one out. Sure people know how happy they were when they got engaged or had their first child. They know when their house burned down or when a loved one passed. But what if you had no memory of the worst thing that ever happened to you.

~Conor

January 25th, 2011 by Conor

I should be working on my post from yesterday, telling you all about how great it is that everyone has showed up to support danny. I have it started and might even finish it later, but i know you already know these things and for now I’ve been spending a lot of time in Dannys room today just trying to be a positive energy in the room and to try and help lighten the mood a little bit, (go figure right). Even though you can tell that Danny is frustrated with himself he needs to realize that every little thing that he is doing is way beyond anything that I personally expected from him at this point. I thought that I was amazed when i first saw him last night when he was making me laugh via laptop typing. Now, today he has already been out of his bed taking a walk down the hall, sitting up in a chair out of the bed, and taking all sorts of quizzes and tests to establish areas of his brain that need more work than others. Of course he is frustrated, he is struggling at tasks that were mindless to him three weeks ago. Watching him give his all at everything he does makes you realize just how much we all take for granted in our lives.

Take a second and think about your everyday life. You wake up and get out of bed. Stop. You can’t get out of bed because you can’t get up on your own, and even if you do, you cant keep your balance enough to stay standing on your own. Balance for Danny was one of many of his strong points and now he has to start from scratch. The frustration must be tremendous.

Now back to your every day life. So you’ve made it out of your bed except you’re on the floor now because you couldn’t keep your balance. What do you do? Call for help, right? Wrong. You no longer have the ability to speak. The simple act that we all learn at an age most don’t even remember. Danny can no longer communicate vocally. Anything Danny wants to communicate needs to be written or typed down if hand gestures or facial expressions don’t suffice.

These are just two examples of the dozen I have had to witness Danny struggle with just in the past 45 minutes. It is difficult to have to sit and watch your friend struggle with “the simple things in life”.

Even without the tests and moving around, just the sounds of the machines helping keep Danny stable are enough to make you go insane. The tubes and wires have been cut back now since I’ve been here, but there are still much more than I would care to deal with. Every couple of minutes another beeper is going off or another dressing needs to be changed. All Danny wants to do is rest and as soon as he gets a chance another ringer goes off and a bad IV needs to be replaced, (this specific example is happening right now in front of my eyes).

Anyways, i am sure you all must be overwhelmed by the amounts of posts being put up today. I know personally mine must have given a few people a headache by the end. Ill try to keep them shorter. There are a lot of us here now and for the sake of not repeating everyone else I’ll try to tone it down. For now we are all trying to solve the mystery of the missing nose ring. Stayed in for the first two surgeries but is nowhere to be found after the third and even the surgeon who performed the operation was baffled by it’s disappearance. I vote we save a few staples and make a set for him when he gets out of here. Even with all that is going on it is very noticeable that it is missing.

Final note before I’m out, even though I realize you all know the catheter is out but I wasn’t sure if you were aware that this topic was about 80% of Danny’s conversations. I’m extremely excited to find out what we get to talk about now!

Goodnight Danny…get some rest for me and whatever you do…don’t pee the bed!

-TommyJ

January 25th, 2011 by Conor

I just got out of Danny room and I can’t explain in my shity English all the feelings that came to my mind when I saw him. When I first saw him I almost broke down, is so hard to see a friend in that situation, but when Danny look at us and smile it change everything, I thought to myself, yeah he is back.
When all this happened I was on the other side of the world, in Argentina and it was so hard being that far and not knowing what the hell is going on. And now after flying from Argentina to Reno for 20 hours and driving 17 hours to Montana I got to see him, I feel such a relive. Danny is doing good, I know now that he’ll be back with us sooner than what we thought.

I met Danny last season in Tahoe, we where roomates and we got along really good from the moment he enter the house. The first week in the house he got a big box full of goggles from anon and he came up to me making fun of my accent and asked me if I want a pair of goggles, I knew the guy for 3 days and he was already giving his stuff away, that’s how Danny is, he gives, he is one of the most generous persons I know. That’s how it was the whole season, hey men take my car, or use my board , or grapp any of my stuff when ever you want. We had such a great time. First time I rode with Danny I was so impress, He is so good!!! Such a natural talented rider, issaaa mazinggg!!

Then the season finish and I had to go back to Argentina. Last year was definitely the worst of my life, 5 days after I got back from Tahoe to Argentina my sister die on a car accident in Austria. Danny meet her cause she came and visit while I was in Tahoe. I can’t putt in words how it feels to lose somebody you love so much. Danny was with me the whole way, he send me so much love and support, and I’ll never gonna forget that. I know Danny suffered with me for my lost and that he would have done anything on his hands to help me out. That’s what friendship it’s all about, friends like this are family.
All I’ll like to say to Danny right know is thanks for everything, I can’t wait for some sarcastic jokes. You are family, I love you men!!

Tito

January 25th, 2011 by Conor

Just wanted to let everyone know that since we are no longer allowed to do the graveyard shift, we will be doing the updating throughout the day. New content all day long here at Danny Is The Bomb! Check back often to get the latest news.

January 25th, 2011 by Conor

As always send in your photos to 603-496-6621 or donations@dannyisthebomb.com

January 25th, 2011 by Conor

Right after the last blog, we entered Danny’s Hospital room in the ICU at Great Falls…

I can’t explain the feeling of rounding the corner of the ICU waiting to lock eyes on Danny…but I can explain how it felt to see him…and it was Danny, not some person in a vegetative state.

His parents were already in the room. His head wrapped in a bandage turban with a five o’clock shadow. when we first walked into the room, he was sleeping. Then Conor sat next to him and said “Danny, there are some friends here to see you…” Danny rolled a little then opened the eye that wasn’t swollen from the last surgery. What he did next nearly made us do backflips in the hospital room…he lifted both arms as if to signify victory. His hand movements were completely Danny.

These are all events that do not surprise Conor, Michelle and Danny’s parents, because these are part of the strides that he has been making over the past few days. however, for us down in Tahoe, these are the things we’ve waited to SEE, not just read about. One particular thing that he keeps doing is tapping his hand or foot on the edge of his bed as if to signify that he has had enough…tapping out.

This seemed like big news, until a few hours later news came to Conor that Danny was sitting up on his own in a chair next to his hospital bed…when I walked in again I saw Danny sitting in his chair, turban still on, looking “like royalty” as Michelle said. He looked at ease and was tapping his hands incessantly. He then underwent some hand eye speech therapy tests, like connect the shapes and a few mazes (which where pretty hard from my point of view). When He finished these tests he took it upon himself to rise up on his own and attempt to get back into bed. As awesome as it was to see him stand up, it was a little premature…for another day Danny.

This was my experience on day one of a short visit…but this stuff is intense. What makes it all worth it is the look in DCT’s eye that not only suggests, but demands the understanding that he WILL be out of here soon.