I can not believe that it hasnt even been a week since the first time I saw Neil in the hospital. This photo was taken last night (Friday night) and I first saw him last Sunday night. Ive seen him every night since I heard about the accident. And I usually go around the same time, so each time I see him, its been 24 hours since the last. I can not even explain what progress hes made every 24 hours. I feel like I (and so many others) have been privy to a miracle. Not even one week ago, I went to the hospital prepared to say goodbye to someone I grew up with. Neil was in a full blown coma, on total life support, incapable of responding to any stimuli. Even his nurses seemed despondent. At one point, he yawned (what seemed to me) a big healthy yawn, and I ran and told a nurse thinking she would get excited. But she looked at me as if to say You poor thing, and explained that that didnt mean anything at all....that yawning is just a natural reflex, and that he would be able to do that with no brain activity at all. She explained that they were looking for him to respond to commands. Like a good sign would be if he were able to squeeze my hand if they told him to. And he wasnt able to. The whole situation was sounding really grim....it seemed there was a good possibility that Neil would die, or live in a permanent vegetative state, or possibly be blind even if he were to live (as tests revealed the vision part of his brain was damaged). When I got home from visiting him that first night, I went to message him on facebook. I wanted to see what our message history was.....Turns out, the last thing he wrote to me was about yoga. He said hed been keeping up with my yoga stuff on facebook and wanted to get together to talk about lessons. It was a message Id missed. Neil only ever hits me up about getting a beer, or going to a music festival....even though Ive explained to him over and over how much I hate music festivals. He never hears me though....He just insists on how lame I am, and tries to make me go anyway. Point is though, I was shocked to see Neil interested in something healthy. Hes probably never exercised a day in his life. And he eats bullshit like chili cheese dogs from 7-Eleven for lunch....and packaged Hostess shit like Honey-Buns for breakfast...like shit thats not even food. So I was even more depressed to see that just when Neil was showing interest in something healthy, it was too late. I went ahead and messaged him back knowing hed never get it....or even if he did, he would probably not be able to walk again, which (of course) would knock out yoga. Ive never been so pleased to be so wrong. Im trying to think of some really basic, and simple poses to teach him once hes out of rehab. I think Warrior is a great place to start.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 19:05:25 +0000