A few weeks ago you all heard that my good friend Jim was ina bad car wreck.. and was in a coma. He spent several weeks in and out of the coma…Last I reported here he could recognize people but not speak. He wasn’t able to do anything when I went and visited him a few weeks back.. Since then . Jim has improved steadily. He’s in a rehabilitation center just outside of NYC now.. I got a letter from my good friend Bill last night that really made me feel hopeful. Jim is up and able to move around a little in a wheel chair. he recognizes people and can say heir names. He can read words put in from of him too!.. The most interesting thing is.. he counts… constantly I’m told..<\/p>\n
Here’s the way Bill tells the story:<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
.. Jim recognized me when I walked in, saying “Bill”, and even did his best to introduce me
\nto the nurse sitting with him by taking my hand and her hand and putting them together.
\nHe started really fidgeting around quite a bit in his wheelchair, (where he spends much of his time seat belted in),
\nas though he wanted to get up, and then his deliberate counting continued: “17, 18, 19, 20,…”<\/p>\nThe nurse encouraged him to talk to me more, but it was mostly anxious fidgeting and counting, “35, 36, 37, 38,…”
\nShe decided to let me take him for a stroll around the wing in the wheelchair which definitely calmed the fidgeting.
\nThe change of scenery was what he wanted\/needed, but the counting still proceeded, “7, 8, 9, 10…”<\/p>\nWe tried to change the topic to colors.\u00a0 “Jim what color shirt am I wearing?”\u00a0 “20, orange, 21, 22, 23…”
\n“What color shirt are you wearing?”\u00a0\u00a0 “28, blue, 29, 30…”\u00a0 and he waved me off, seemingly annoyed that my
\nsimple questions were breaking his concentration over his counting.\u00a0 (By the way, his answers were correct,
\nand his numbers and words were fairly clear and easy to understand during all of this.)
\nHowever, when you were able to break him off the counting for longer periods, his words would become
\nmore difficult to understand and disjointed.<\/p>\nThen I went after the alphabet with him, which he fairly successfully recited a couple of times,
\nbut then it was back to the numbers, as there are many more of them to explore than letters…
\nMore simple questions:\u00a0 “Your dog is so friendly, can you tell me his name?”\u00a0 “44, Charlie, 45, 46,…”
\n“What street do you live on?”\u00a0 “420, Oxford, 422, 424,…”
\nBut again, these trivial questions weren’t of interest to him and he would only quickly slip these
\nshort answers in between his streams of numbers.<\/p>\nThe nurse left me to continue my laps around the 4th floor wings with Jim alone.<\/p>\n
I began to realize that maybe Jim was deliberately using the counting as a tool to maintain a continuous
\nstream of thought.\u00a0 He could count for long continuous strings of numbers, but sentences without numbers
\ncould only go for a few words before they became jumbled, mumbled and disjointed.
\n…OK, no more simple questions, just regular conversation, and don’t get distracted by his counting…
\n(or sometimes just count right along with him…)<\/p>\n“Jim, I came here from my daughters’ volleyball game in Cold Spring tonight.”
\n“Nice.”
\n“Which one?”
\n“Both, Katie and Julia.”
\n“What grades?”
\n“Katie is in 11th.”
\n“What grade Julia?”
\n“Julia is in 9th.”
\n“Wow.”
\n…and back to the counting….<\/p>\nWe had some more limited success with this and then Jim started to ease up a bit on the counting and
\nstarted trying to read some of the things on the walls of the hallways.\u00a0 His reading is actually pretty good,
\nand relatively easy to understand.\u00a0 Again, I think focusing on a number of written words in a row helps him
\nto keep his stream of thought going and he’s able to do it without jumbling his speech vs. a full conversation.<\/p>\nSo as we did our hallway “laps”, we’d read some of the things on the doors and walls along the way.
\nSometimes I’d just read them aloud as we went by, if Jim wasn’t up to it.
\nAlong the therapy wing hallway loop there were also these solid Red 1970’s vintage phones on the walls.
\nSo, along the loop, I’d be calling out:<\/p>\n“Speech Therapy…”
\n“Housekeeping Closet…”
\n“Bat Phone…”
\n“Laundry Chute…”
\n“Equipment Room…”
\n“Elevators…”
\n“Bat Phone…”
\n“Training Classroom…”
\n“Dining Room….”<\/p>\n…and on around the loop for a 2nd lap…<\/p>\n
But this time Jim stopped the wheelchair just after the Elevators and rolled it over to the red phone there.
\nBefore I could stop him, he reached out, pulled the corded handset to his ear and said “Batman?” into the phone.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It’s so cool to hear him making this progress.. it’s also very cool to hear how the brain works in such strange ways..\u00a0\u00a0 This al ounds like good news to me…<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
OK.. I gotta sleep..<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
OH.. don’t forget.. I’m helping run a maker\u00a0 meetup\u00a0 on the High Voltage hobby tomorrow at 7PM at Alumni Hall of Champlain College.. you can read about it here<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0 Come whatch us ZAP ourselves !<\/p>\n
nte all, nite sam<\/p>\n
-me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few weeks ago you all heard that my good friend Jim was ina bad car wreck.. and was in a coma. He spent several weeks in and out of the coma…Last I reported here he could recognize people but not speak. He wasn’t able to do anything when I went and visited him a … Continue reading Tuesday night – counting on Jim<\/span>