January 17th, 2011 by Conor

Danny was awake for a good stretch around 2 am and he looked a little bummed out. He was pretty foggy in general so it’s hard to say what he was feeling but he looked kind of sad. I find it hard to say this, but, If he is sad that’s almost a good thing. That means he is able to process what is going on and realize that it’s not good. To most of us that seems like a pretty obvious thing but you have to understand that with regards to brain damage we are trying to find out where exactly Danny stands.

Anyway, to me he looked sad. So I thought I would go ahead and join the ranks with Joe McCusker and Ian Stacey and try to cheer him up. So at 2 am when Danny was the most awake he was all night I decided to shave my head in the bathroom of his room to try to put a smile on his face. Can’t say that I got the reaction that i was really hoping for but I figured it was worth a shot at cheering him up. At some point he will get it. Until then I will do whatever it takes to try to put a smile on his face.

Dad you’re next!

January 17th, 2011 by Conor

Despite the landslide victory and my attempt at advocating for these guys in Montana, the “male nurses” up here now claim that they actually don’t mind their title. So now they are onto the next fun topic of debate here in the ICU. These guys want to find out which of them looks the most heterosexual. They thought this would be fun, I think it’s fun. Period. This is simply an way to solve a joke between the three of them. I thought I could help.

*This is not meant to offend anyone.
*This is not meant to suggest anything about the profession.
*This is fun and should not be taken any other way.
*This is not a time to get into politics.
*If you can’t handle this poll and you will lose sleep about it at night please comment below to let the webmaster know what an insensitive human being he really is.

January 16th, 2011 by Conor

Tyler and Paul are two of the late night regulars here in the ICU. They are awesome at their jobs but frustrated with the extended title they have acquired – The so called “Male Nurse.” Why is it that they are called male nurses? Why not just nurse? You wouldn’t say “Male Lawyer” or “Male Mechanic.”

Yes, they are males. Yes, they are nurses. And Yes, they are cool and very good at what they do. In fact these guys really guys hold it down here on the graveyard shift at the ICU. They deserve to be called nurses without any qualification.

Just to make sure you know how cool these dudes are we took a little family photo here in the ICU. That’s Paul on the left and Tyler on the right. Xgames was nice enough to send this gear to Danny so we thought we would do something fun with it.

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January 16th, 2011 by Conor

I wanted to take a minute and thank everyone out there that has helped us out in one way or another. There are a LOT of you out there, and it really is hard to do it any justice with a simple blog post on the website. I hope to one day repay each and every one of you somehow or another even though I’m sure that wasn’t necessarily your plan by helping us.

The offers of time, resources, talents, goods and services, and words of love have been nothing short of amazing. There are a lot of wonderful people that surround us, and it’s hard to imagine this process without them. I want people out there to know that the nursing staff does not see this kind of thing all the time- at least from what I hear. There are people in other rooms that don’t even get visitors. Often times the visitors they have have very limited support systems. I know that because I have talked to a fair amount of them. We are very fortunate to have such generous and loving people in our lives. Even though we are not physically near any of our support systems the love that has come in for Danny and our family has been nothing short of remarkable. We LOVE YOU ALL!

My only hope (and I have mentioned this before) is that everyone can be as supportive (if not more so) when Danny begins to understand what has happened. For us, this is the hard part. We see simple human progress as monumental growth. And given what happened, it is. Danny moving his legs is a big deal for all of us. I am not looking to take anything away from those moments, but I do want to keep one thing in perspective; we are all going to be elated at some moment of progress when we feel satisfied that we can move on mentally from this event. Chances are the moment that we all feel relief is when this event is going to be just starting for Danny. Remember the pain that this moment caused you when you first heard that it happened. That is what Danny will feel. Make sure that you help him get back on his feet with love and support. He is going to need each and every one of us to be there for him. That is when his journey is going to begin. That is when Danny is going to need your love and support.

Thank you all for being there so far. There is a long road ahead and Danny is going to need you.

January 14th, 2011 by Conor

We are having some debate here on the graveyard shift. We got word that it is ok to play music for Danny. MIchelle suggested that we play him classical music. Her argument:

“Classical music affects the brain’s organization and abilities, through its melody and rhythm. The rhythm raises the level of serotonin produced in your brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter, involved in the transmission of nerve impulses that helps maintaining joyous feelings. When the brain produces serotonin, tension is eased. In fact depression is a consequence of the scarce production of this hormone. Serotonin is released when the brain is “positively shocked”. For instance: if we look at a splendid painting, smell a delicious scent, feel an extraordinary sensation, eat something delicious or listen to some charming music, then the brain lets off a certain amount of serotonin which arouses and maximizes pleasant feelings. Music’s rhythm can also stimulate other natural cadences of the body, resembling the heartbeat, or the Alfarhythm of the brain, and this effect is used to counter the development of clinical depression. The melody instead, is the “sparkle” that catalyses the creative process in our minds. The commonly known “Mozart effect” is a phenomena that suggests the improvement on the performance of spatio-temporal reasoning and short-term memory through the listening of complex music, such as Mozart’s two-piano concertos.” -Classicalforums.com

I plan on diving deeper for further knowledge. In the meantime, feel free to chime in with your thoughts on the matter.
-Michelle

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I think that we should listen to good music. I realize that “good” music for a lot of people is in fact classical music, however, not for Danny. Danny can’t really stand classical music. My dad happens to love classical. On a long car ride with Dad you can actually watch Danny’s mood quickly decline. My suggestion is that we listen to the type of music that Danny loves. He digs a good snowboard sound track or even a rare hot off of pimp mix 1-17. Now my inclination is that Notorious BIG might not be quite so appropriate in this situation but I still think he would rather hear that then classical. My suggestion is that we listen to a mellow collection of artsists such as Mumford and Sons, Empire of the Sun, Ghostland Observatory, Passion Pit, Ghostland Observatory, Bon Iver, etc.

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So what should we do? We need your help. Do we stick with classical or is everything fair game?

[polldaddy poll=4387419]

On the music tip BIG thank you to Jason Stevens for fixing my Pandora problem. Danny and I are both stoked about that.

January 14th, 2011 by Conor

Hi – I read this and couldn’t wait to post it – made me think of Danny and his journey “underneath the snow”. We all want him to wake up – but this helps us realize that he’s preparing for his new life – there is growth where we cannot see it 🙂

From the book Journey to the Heart

Cherish the winter.
Cherish its quietness, the time of going within to rest and heal.
Cherish this time of preparation that must come before new life.
Cherish the hope that lies beneath the snow.

-Annie

January 11th, 2011 by Conor

Ian sent me this through Facebook and I thought it was worthy of sharing. Just to catch people up to speed. This conversation started when I told Ian that I was the proud owner of www.chucknorristees.com. He was foaming at the mouth. Literally. Danny would want this message to be here:

Hey bro, just thinking about you and Danny, and i remembered one of the first times we met, hanging out on the river. we were discussing chuck norris joke tee-shirts. we had some laughs, so i looked up a few chuck jokes that i thought were hilarious, and hopefully lighten up the mood for u.

when the rock says “can you smell what the rock is cook’n” chuck norris replys it better be my lunch!

chuck norris has a daughter, her name is Hulk Hogan.

Chucks daughter lost her virginity… he got it back.

hope u had some laughs with that one man. liking the updates on danny. it sounds like he’s getting better slowly but surely. Miss you buddy, hope to hear from you soon!

-Ian

chuck Norris once lit a fart in the Sahara forrest.

life insurance gets cheaper the further u live from chuck norris.

chuck norris took a million sleeping pills… it made him blink.

when chuck laughs, milk comes out of your nose.

chuck norris puts the laughter in Manslaughter.

chuck norris drove his mom home from the hospital after he was born.