Words set to music are often retained in the memory when a lot of other things are unreachable. Dani's recall of song lyrics and tunes numbers in the hundreds; probably the thousands. It is immeasurable.

The opposite of Alzheimers, brain injury patients usually see gradual improvement of cognitive skills and not gradual worsening. Here's something I sent out to a small group of friends back in the mid 90's exactly as I sent it then. I hope you can see the potential correlation for brain injury patients and caregivers.

Ever glance away uncomfortably when approaching a person with some obvious physical or mental limitation? My theory on the script in your head at that moment

the last few lines of the book Over My Head, A Doctor's Own Story of Head Injury from the Inside Out, by Claudia Osborn

forwarded to me recently with my comment at the bottom

What love is all about.

It was a busy morning, approximately 8:30 am, when an elderly gentleman, in his 80's, arrived to have stitches removed from his thumb. He stated that he was in a hurry as he had an appointment at 9:00 am.

I took his vital signs and had him take a seat, knowing it would be over an hour before someone would to able to see him. I saw him looking at his watch and decided, since I was not busy with another patient, I would evaluate his wound.

Dani's Aunt Lesa shared this with me shortly after Dani's injury.

Brain injury patients and those that help them through life DO "get back to normal", but not until they accept a new definition of what normal is.

Welcome To Holland

by

Emily Perl Kingsley

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

This was sent to me years ago. I am humbled and deeply touched each time I reread it.

From "Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery" by Richard Selzer

I stand by the bed where a young woman lies, her face postoperative, her mouth twisted in palsy, clownish. A tiny twig of the facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, has been severed. She will be thus from now on. The surgeon had followed with religious fervor the curve of her flesh; I promise you that. Nevertheless, to remove the tumor in her cheek, I had cut the little nerve.

Her young husband is in the room. He stands on the opposite side of the bed, and together they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this wry-mouth I have made, who gaze at and touch each other so generously, greedily? The young woman speaks.