January 23rd, 2011 by Conor

Conor pretty much covered all the bases with his post about tonight. It was quite the eventful night with a lot of interaction. One thing that I thought was worth adding to his post was a comment he made after being treated for the asthma. The lung specialist was reading what Danny was typing on my computer and after they had assessed the situation Danny typed “the sock monkey will help.” He has become attached to his teddy bear and the new addition, that his mom brought back from NH, is the sock monkey. We now have two little sock monkeys (thanks Maaah and Megamo). Danny definitely hasn’t lost his sense of humor.

-Michelle

January 23rd, 2011 by Conor

I want to start off by saying sorry to Guy. Why? Well, until tonight, I thought that Guy was a really annoying waste of time and money. Tonight He was outdone. Guy makes Teal look good. Guy not only tried to conceal the usage of his phone but also occasionally got up in attempts to look busy and helpful. Guy also tactfully listened to one headphone in the ear on the far side of where I am sitting. Guy also at least looked over at Danny whenever he moved around. Teal makes no effort what-so-ever, and looks annoyed when anything beeps for fear that her perfectly choreographed level of Angry Birds might be in Jeopardy. Teal enjoys text messaging, hand held games, dinner breaks with her boyfriend and long walks in the ICU- shes a keeper! When I met Teal my expectations were not low. Guy had set the bar for job performance last night and I didn’t really think that he could be outdone.

But then I met the limp handshake/barely eyecontacting/lack of care/I wont stand up to meet you, Teal. Teal is not actually named Teal, however, similar to last night I don’t think her name is worthy of being published. I have no fear of publishing it I just don’t think she deserves the kind of media attention that Danny is the Bomb might bring her. The last thing we need are swarms of reporters waiting outside the hospital to meet this infamous Teal. She certainly means well enough I guess. She sits quietly in the corner and looks attentive every time a real person that cares comes into the room. I gave her the name teal because of her head to toe teal outfit with matching tacky purse. ALL TEAL. I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.

Other than my noticeable frustration that we still have a babysitter things have been pretty back and fourth. Danny is happy one minute and then kind of sad the next. In general, it is not as easy to get him to laugh tonight as it was last night. I think this is something I have to get used to thought. If I was him, it probably wouldn’t take much to get my mood to sway. The staff have had to draw blood three times while I have been here in just a few hours. His asthma is tight and ALL he wants is something to eat or drink. He is still days, if not a week away from being able to do either of those things.

— Breaking News, Teal just got out of her chair to pick up a fallen stuffed animal. She is now neck and neck with Guy.

I tried to have a chat with Danny again earlier but it just wasn’t the same as last night. I had to run my questions through Michelle, as she was cuddling with Danny in middle of the chat. She was also the keeper of the keyboard but I don’t think that had to do with a lack of success. Danny just wasn’t feeling it.

IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS POST EVERYTHING CHANGED!

Danny started to have some trouble with his asthma and that woke him up. He was uncomfortable, not in trouble, just really uncomfortable. He looked over at me and gestured as if he wanted to take a hit off an inhaler. I asked him how bad it was and he motioned both hands toward his chest. We told Cindy what was going on and asked if there was anything she might be able to do. Shortly after that the doctor came in to try to ask Danny a bunch of questions and Danny was having trouble answering in any articulate way with hand gestures. I suggested that he type anything that the doctor should maybe know. He began to explain to the doctor that the felt like something uncomfortable was in the site of where the trache is. The doctor suggested a couple of different things he wanted to do. When Danny moved the mouse around one of the other windows that was up on Michelles computer came into view. There was a picture of an odd clump of hair on the floor shaped in the letters “DCT” Danny looked very very confused. He was back on Facebook!

He scrolled through all the photos with a variety of fun and confused actions. I don’t know if he can really figure out why we shaved our heads for him or not. We showed him all the albums on the facebook page and then also led him over to the website. He was mostly drawn to pictures. Very few things caught his attention but there were a few things that I thought people might find entertaining.

He actually typed in the search bar “Looks like he has lost his damn mind.”

He was entirely confused as to how he had been tagged as Drew Donabedian and laughed when I showed him the call out below his pic.

He was particularly happy when he saw this picture. He scrolled the mouse around Toms head a bunch and wrote in the search bar. “I miss Tommy J. I wish he was here.” Well, surprise surprise Danny! He will be here tomorrow night. What a random coincidence that timing is. Danny still doesn’t know that Tom is Visiting.

After looking around for a little bit he actually signed into Facebook. Danny had amassed some decent stats over the last few weeks.

Dave Soroka was the one and only person to chat with Danny. I can’t imagine how surprised Dave was. There he is in the middle of nowhere on some boat chatting with Danny. How cool is the internet sometimes?

The respiratory therapist came in to take a swab out from his lungs to bring into the lab. This caught him way way off guard. He started violently coughing and that pretty much ended the computer fun. It was a great session with Danny and I am not relaying many of the details of what happened, but sometimes we have to just keep these little laughs and details to ourselves. There is only so much that we can relay to the outside world, sometimes we have to spend the time where it really counts, and that’s with Danny.

Teal didn’t find any of these remarkable moments to be one bit interesting. She didn’t so much as show one bit of interest towards what was going on. I found her presence frustrating because she didn’t care. I am tired of having a babysitter and wish we didn’t have to have one in the first place. I hope her phone dies and she is forced to actually consider doing her job.

Another night down. Another night of weaseling back onto the graveyard shift. Can’t wait for visitors! This is out last night with just me and Danny and Michelle for awhile to come. Tom Jannuzzi arrives tomorrow and then 3 friends from Tahoe get here on Monday. Can’t wait to see you all. It has been nice to have Danny to ourselves but it will be even better to see his face with all the surprises that are headed his way- in the middle of which will be the 3rd and final brain surgery.

So I leave you with this wonderful poll because I honestly am having trouble with this one myself.
[polldaddy poll=4433538]

January 23rd, 2011 by Conor

As always, send in your love and support to 603-496-6621 or donations@dannyisthebomb.com

Thank you all and keep em coming. I haven’t showed Danny the site yet but I am anxious to show him and can’t wait for him to see all the awesome things you all have sent in. KEEP ‘EM COMING!

January 22nd, 2011 by Conor

During the evening there is an hour and a half long shift change and we are forced out to the lobby during that time. We were sitting there when Michelle was crusin’ around Facebook and randomly noticed that Mayo had shaved his head. My first thought… Rad. Very Rad. How do we get more? So I started to chat him about how he should try to get Moss and Ian to do it. I didn’t get any response from him and then all of a sudden we noticed that there was a picture of Moss and Tito with shaved heads! Tito just arrived to Tahoe last night from Argentina and I hadn’t even thought of him as a possibility on the shaved head campaign. That left only one housemate on the head shave… Ian. Didn’t know which way that was going to go (for all I know he led the charge), but I had no reason to believe how he could have talked his way out of that one – I just had yet to see a picture. And then I got the group shot! The whole house did it! With newly acquired members and all. I was so stoked. Michelle was stoked. Then a picture message from Will Porter (Michelle’s roomate, our friend)! A DCT hair sculpture. No way… Will too! Seemed impossible, but then again he was no rookie to the shaved head, and it would be a pretty bold move to send it from his phone and not have done the deed himself. Then I got the epic Bozo the clown looking shot of Will in mid shave.

What a great group of friends we have. Mayo, Ian, Moss, Tito and Will… Love you all. You are amazing people and I am both happy and lucky to be able to call each and every one of you my friends. I can’t imagine seeing Danny’s face when he sees those pictures!

~Conor

January 22nd, 2011 by Conor

C-men and D2 –

I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write to you. This is probably the 20th time I’ve sat down at my computer to write to you guys, but I am still finding myself at a loss for words. Maybe it’s because I’m not that good of a writer or maybe it’s because I’m terrible at expressing my feelings, but both reasons are lame and I apologize for the delay. I have been following the progress you guys are making out there and I can’t thank you enough for keeping the site updated. Every time I read the stories and look through the pictures, both tears and a smile come to my face. You guys had a huge impact on my life and I will always cherish some of the most memorable times we had together. I think one of the hardest things for me is how Danny I grew apart a bit and reading stories or seeing photos that I was a part of on the site. One example is the limo in Vegas. When I read that story and saw the photo of Danny I started dying laughing because all I can remember is the homeless dude singing Frank Sinatra’s, “New York” on the strip while we drank 40oz of Old English as fast as we possibly could. I had so many good memories with you guys and I think what connected me and Danny the most is our similar sense of humors and appreciation for small things. Here is a short list of quotes and things that basically defined me and Danny’s friendship…there’s some in here for you too Conor:

* Wyoming trip – I will never EVER forget picking up those girls hitchhiking. It was the first time in my life I ever heard the term bro bra used and was so intrigued to figure out what it meant. Conor’s small talk will forever be engraved in my head, asking if the hitchhiker’s Honda Civic was, “reliable” or not. I think he also asked about the moon roof? Correct me if I’m wrong. I can remember Danny and I just wanting no part of the situation while Conor did his best to make the car ride go by as fast as it could.
o Town meeting – one of the drunkest/funnest times in my life. Lighting off fireworks in the bar, throwing them at people talking shit, and somehow jumping in a cab and getting away scott free. This was the theme of everything I did with you guys.
o Shooting Roman Candles at oncoming tractor trailers on the highway…HAHAHAHA oh my god that was unbelievable. All you could hear from that video was all of us laughing uncontrollably (if that isn’t a word it is now).
o The riding in WY itself. That trip definitely changed my perspective on snowboarding for life. I’d never ridden terrain like that before and it opened my eyes to a whole new world.
* Cabewing – Danny harrassed me forever to come up and do this thing called, “cabrewing” and I had no idea what the hell it was. When I finally had a chance to give it a go, it made for some of the best memories of my life. I met so many awesome people and I can’t remember a majority of them, but I believe that means it was a good trip down the river.
* Jock Jams – Me introducing two of my good friends to Danny for the first time. They didn’t know what to think as they watched two, 21 year old men dance to Jock Jams, shotgun as many beers as humanly possible and proceed to slap each other in the face because it was “fun”.
* Yahoo – Danny you know what I’m talking about on this one.
* SNHU – This is where it all started. I just remember this dude walking in my room because he saw my snowboard and asked me if I wanted to go sometime. That turned into 2-3 times a week riding at Loon, sitting on the side of the trail dry heaving from the night before, doing it all over again that night while trying to say whatever you possibly could to any girl that walked by, to my first trips out West where I met the infamous brother Conor.
o Danny and I would always ease drop on each other’s conversations with girls to see who had the more ridiculous pick up lines. I can’t go into detail of what we said, but lets just say they were priceless. Haha oh man just thinking about it still makes me laugh.
o Enrique Iglasias’ Hero – probably one of the best drinking activities ever. If you experienced this, you know what I’m talking about.
* George’s @ Vail – Is that the name of the place? 15 of us screaming at the top of our lungs running through the Village at Vail around 6pm, while parents grabbed their kids in absolute horror wondering what the hell was going on.
* Adventures in Boston – countless good times in the city.
* When Danny can, let him watch this – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LKDRb-lK9s

I could go on and on with the memories we have had because there are so many. Besides the funny/party times, Danny and I also shared a lot of close talks. We could talk about anything – life, girls, traveling, clothes, music, shoes, people walking on the street, girls, what we wanted to do when we grew up….anything. I still consider Danny one of my best friends eventhough our friendship drifted apart a bit. This whole thing has just made me realize how much our friendship has meant to my life. I could go months without talking to you man and we would always pick up right where we left off. Not a day goes by where I don’t think about you, the times we’ve had, and the more times we are going to have together. I know you are going to get through this and I can’t wait to just sit and talk with you again. If you need anything and I mean anything please let me know. Stay strong out there man and I can’t wait to see you when you get back.

I tried to keep it as short as possible because I know you have a lot emails coming in. You don’t have to post this if you don’t want…I know it’s kinda all over the place and not that formal, but I just needed to write this to Danny to let him know how much our friendship means to me. I attached some photos…you can post them or just keep them for viewing (probably the only photos in the world of Danny getting Irie). Thanks for all your hard work on the site Conor. Can’t wait to see you as well when you get home. Talk to you soon.

Matt

January 22nd, 2011 by Conor

Sooooo….For starters, I am so proud with your progress since the injury. Everyone at my work, Verizon, knows the situation your in right now and asks everyday how you’re doing. We constantly have dannyisthebob.com up on the IPads at work so everyone can read the updates.

I have already posted something when the site was first built and sent some pics to hopefully put a smile on your face but I feel like it’s time for a little follow up since (hopefully) you will be reading this in a couple days! This is the longest I have gone without talking to you Danny, it is sad that I cant just pick up the phone or hop on Skype and say what’s up. I am SO happy to see that you are doing better though, that is what matters most. Conor ,your family, and Michelle have done a FANTASTIC job of keeping us all up to date with as much info as they can and I Thank them for that. I have already told Conor and Michelle this , but I wouldn’t put anyone else there beside you while you heal up and make sure that you are taken care of by the best. I do want you to know that I wanted to come there but I think it would of been too overwhelming for everyone there, and that’s okay. I just want DCT to be back so I can get the usual COLSSSS text messages, haha. Since I got paid yesterday, now I can order some Danny Is The Bomb schwag. I can’t wait to wear it! Zula (my puppy you used to Skype with) says Hello and keep up the great work!

Miss you DCT!
<3 COLS

January 22nd, 2011 by Conor

Nicki Jean gave her helmet a fresh tag tonight with a Danny Is the Bomb shout out. Nicki qualified 5th in womens slopestyle and will be one of 6 girls in finals tomorrow. It will be on TV tomorrow sometime in the afternoon, I had a hard time finding out when because the site has last years schedule and no specifics for this year. Nicki will be hitting the course 2 times and hopes to bring it home for Danny! Nicki Is awesome. If you have a minute tomorrow afternoon, be sure to cheer Nicki on at the Dew Tour! I have a good feeling about this!

~ Conor

January 22nd, 2011 by Conor

dear conor, michelle, sock monkey, moose, random “guy”:

I found out early about danny’s accident and injury, just a couple days after it happened. in fact, i sent a “get shredder danny” photo from my hotel at killington and had a short text conversation with conor, who was very stoked that although i didn’t know danny, i was reaching out to him and wishing him back onto his feet. i’ve been hurt, most snowboarders have – of course, i’ve never been where danny is and can’t speak about it – but it always bums me out when a great rider (and danny obviously is, i mean, if people haven’t seen his vids they’re missing out) goes down to injury.

the major difference here is that you, conor, and michelle, and everyone else there are doing so much for danny, so many people watch DITB every day just to check on danny. i’ve checked in almost every day since i discovered the site, and almost every day there is something else that warms my heart. it is so wonderful to hear that danny is still danny! that he can communicate, cuddle, poot, and generally be himself as best as he can. i have such a strong feeling that danny will be back to himself soon, and that then you can all take your lives off of the “hold button” and get out of that hospital and whatnot. i can’t wait for the day the updates tell us that danny has been outside, that he’s felt the sun and wind on his face. for me, those simple two things mean the world. and i’m sure that as important as it is for danny to recuperate, to get well, and get put back together, how hard must it be to lay there, surrounded by machines and tubes, when you’re a free spirit, when you belong on a snowboard.

it has to be just as frustrating if not more so for you guys up there. for you guys that know him personally, for you that know more than just the website and the multi-flip clips, it has to be terrifying, amazing, just wild to be there and see this happen. it’s truly astonishing to watch it happen from north carolina; i can’t imagine how wonderful it must have felt to be able to communicate with someone you love so much.

conor, your tireless efforts with this site are worthy of a nobel prize. when danny is back completely, and he sees all that all of you have done for him….that will be a powerful, powerful day. and it will be emotional for all of us too…every one of us wants danny to get up and get better. every single one. and im sure danny wants that too! 😀

the day he walks out of that hospital will be one of the greatest days of all of your lives. it will also be one of the happiest moments of this season for me. i am pulling for all of you, from deep down in the bottom of my heart. it’s a terrible situation, an awful injury to an amazing fellow. that all of the snowboarding world is pulling for danny i hope makes you smile.

cheers, and all the best to everyone, including the snowboarding moose and the sock monkey. with all of the awful things going on in the world these days, it’s truly wonderful to have something happening that makes me smile every day. thank you all, so very much.

GET SHREDDER DANNY! said it once and i’ll say it again!!!!

much love.

January 22nd, 2011 by MIchelle

Danny got a cat scan this morning. Things are looking good and Doctor Gorsuch is planning on putting the bone flap back into place on Monday. Today has been the first day I noticed the skin over the missing piece of bone looking concave. That means the swelling is going down. It looks less normal, but it’s a good thing. After that we’ll just wait for however long post operation recovery takes before they move Danny to PCU. It could be a couple of days or it could be two weeks longer in ICU after this surgery. Sometimes, we were forewarned, the patient will take a step backwards in his recovery after the bone flap procedure. It’s not common, but it’s a possibility. Prior to the cat scan today, they gave him some morphine. He’s been sleeping since I got here around noon until now with about twenty minutes broken up in between of being awake. The respiratory therapist visited, put his voice plug in the tracheostomy, and tried to get Danny to speak, but he wasn’t into it at all. He told me yesterday that it’s painful and it’s harder to breath. He managed a whisper, but that was it for today. It’s been a slow day.

-Michelle

January 22nd, 2011 by Conor

Last night I got by far the most sleep that I have gotten thus far. I went to bed at 1 AM and didn’t wake up until this afternoon around 4PM. I knew I was doomed. That was way too much sleep to even consider the possibility of getting to bed at any reasonable time. There wasn’t much I could do about it at that point so I headed to the hospital anticipating an all-nighter regardless of whether it was in Danny’s room or not.

I didn’t make it into the room until about 8:30 or 9. I found out that Danny would be having a baby sitter for the night this evening which was and Is LAME to say the least. We are paying this guy to sit in the corner. WHY? Because the doctor said he needs to be watched 24 hours a day…. hmmmmm I thought we were doing this pretty well until the other night when a certain nurse thought Danny would be better off without us– more to come on this at a later date when Danny’s health isn’t jeopardized by a rant on health care.

Needless to say Danny has a babysitter that informs me he is making $26 dollars an hour to color in a book 10 feet away from where I currently am writing this. In case you were wondering, I have a much better view of what is going on than Danny, someone tell me how that makes any sense. I wonder what the hospital bills him out to us at… Ahh healthcare I love you. Sorry, I said I wasn’t going to rant. I will stop.

So, I get into the room and I’m hanging out with Michelle and she starts to pack up her stuff at about quarter to 12. I ask where she is going and she informs me that she is heading out because she doesn’t enjoy the interaction when there is some random person in the room. I can’t really blame her, however, the interaction for me isn’t all that different so I don’t really mind, I just find the reasoning for his presence annoying as I have mentioned.

Michelle headed out, and there were three: Me, Danny and Guy. I know his name, but “Guy” is far more appropriate because no one, I mean no one, likes being called Guy. It just doesn’t get much more impersonal than that, and I feel that this guy is welcome in my life about as much as any Guy would be. So Guy and I are sitting here in total silence watching Danny in an effort to out do each other with “who is going to tell Danny that he can’t lie on his right side first” contest. I guess I am selfishly trying to beat him at this game, just as a reminder to him how much he is being overpaid to color.

Eventually, Danny wakes up from a long 2 hour or so nap. He stares around the room and looks very bored. I keep looking over waiting for any way I can help. Finally I suggest that maybe we move his room around. The next time Cindy comes in I tell her that we should go ahead and move the bed. She had suggested it earlier in the night and I tell her we mine as well go for it. Danny is in no mood to request it but I’m sure the rearrangement can’t hurt.

Danny doesn’t seem quite as excited as I was thinking he might be with his new view of the star-like skyline of Great Falls, Montana. I guess I shouldn’t have expected him to be excited. It really isn’t that exciting.

A little more time passes and I make eye contact with Danny again. He does a quick look over his head to confirm what he already knew. Guy has left the room. He proceeds to rip a steady constant 5 on the fart scale. Noticeable, but not too powerful. It was a solid 2 second fart and he kept a very serious an unchanged look on his face while he ripped it. When he finished his whole face turned and he gave me the biggest smile I had seen yet. It was a classic Danny I know that was funny, you should laugh look. And I did. It was great! I laughed so hard that he actually smiled a second big smile again at how big my laugh was.

The laughter wore off and the room became quiet again. I sat there doing my thing again for another 10 minutes when finally Danny knocked on his bed to get my attention. He motioned for me to come over. Nothing like this had happened to me yet so it kind of caught me off guard. I approached and pulled up a chair. I asked a lot of questions to see what was up before I finally realized that he just wanted some company- someone to hang out with. Unfortunately, as I mentioned once before, I can’t exactly sit there in dead silence like Michelle can so I suggested we watch a movie.

While “Pay it Forward” was loading I pulled up another browser and showed Danny a clip of our friend Nicki at the Dew Tour. She said that she was riding this weekend for Danny, that put a huge smile on his face. When the video ended he moved the mouse up to the search bar and typed in “Where is MP?” I immediately called her up because I knew that this was one of the girlfriendy moments that girls dream of. “Michelle your presence is requested in room 5109. Danny is looking for a snuggle buddy.” Michelle could barely speak but said something about being right there. I’m not sure if she was fully dressed or what, but it seemed to me that she made it to the ICU room from the hotel in about the time it takes just to walk here. So she either ran, or was fully clothed waiting for the call.

In the short time that it took her to get from the hotel to the room I opened up a Word document because I thought that maybe Danny would rather type than talk. Although I can now read about 10 different versions of his head nod yes and a shake of no, it still doesn’t give me much of an idea of what he is really thinking. Even though I have never before chatted with a person through a computer that was 2 feet away from me it was a pretty cool feeling. I was communicating with my brother much more than I had up to that point. Neither of us looked at each other from the time the phone call was made till the time that Michelle showed up. Even when she did show up the conversation continued for a little bit.

Here is what transpired.

So, I accidently found myself on the graveyard shift again. Didn’t see it coming but sure enough it’s back. Things are different now though. Danny’s bed has turned 90 degrees and is now facing the window, Danny and Michelle are snuggling 10 feet away from me, and we have Guy. Oh Guy, how we love to overpay you.

That’s it for now. Who know’s what’s in store for tomorrow. Another night down on the Graveyard shift. Another adventure with Danny.

Love ya dude.

~Conor