The Travails of My Oldest Son Danny
On Mother?s Day, May 8, 2016, son Danny called me from his car, as he and his wife were driving to downtown DC to a concert by the Danish group, Lukas Graham. Danny?s wife, Donna, had won the tickets, and they were to have their pictures taken with the band before the concert. We talked most of the way through the drive, then while driving around the venue to get the lay of the land and see the size of the crowd, and then through the process of finding a parking place. A fun conversation, with Dan saying at the end, as always ? ByeI Love You, running it all together.
The next Sunday morning, the 15th, I woke at 6 a m with a dream in my head that I titled Trekking in Nepal ? to get to safety. A very strange dream ? Many, many people walking into the mountains in Nepal. Men, women and children walking along trails, carrying nothing. Nepali volunteers at the trailheads, giving people a meal before they start. Then walking ? some of the trail is good, some is treacherous. Mostly green, beautiful ? but we are walking away from something not good. If you are not up and moving early, you can miss the meal. I am walking with a group of people I know. That night, I set out a glass to catch a liquid / the dew? It rains overnight. The glass has caught the brown liquid, but the rain has diluted and overflowed the glass. And I slept too late and missed the food.
I was totally puzzled, had no sense at all of the meaning. But Nepal is a wonderful home place for me, and I have missed it since my only trip there years ago.
My friend Ed Kluska, an astrologer who also teaches meditation, had announced a Theta heart meditation class for 1:30 to 2:15 p m that afternoon. At just about 1 pm, I decided to give myself a welcome break and attend. I left there, feeling very much in the flow of the Universe, stopping at Clifton Natural Foods on the way home.
And just about the time I walked back into my condo here in Cincinnati, a young woman in Washington, D. C. ran her car into my beautiful son Danny on his motorcycle, not paying any attention on that beautiful and clear and dry Sunday afternoon, and not seeing him at all.
Danny had a great state of the art helmet, and thus no brain injury. Plus the wreck was half a block from a fire station, so EMTs were on the scene in minutes, and Prince Georges Hospital was very close. Danny was unconscious, with a smashed pelvis, nearly destroyed left leg, and major road rash ? which is what the damage is called when skin slides over the road at a high rate of speed. Lots of other smaller injuries showed up over time ? a lacerated bladder, and kidney stress among them.
Danny had major surgeries on Monday, for the pelvis and for the left leg, which had a number of breaks. We family members here in Cincinnati heard about the wreck on Monday morning. By Tuesday evening, we ? me, my ex and our two other sons – were flying to DC. At that point, Danny was in a medically induced coma.
We spent the next seven days mostly in the waiting room of the Intensive Care Unit of Prince Georges Hospital in Hyattsville, Maryland. Danny?s medically induced coma ended on Wednesday or Thursday. But not his own personal coma, which continues. Though on Tuesday, May 31, he opened his eyes briefly, responding to his brother-in-law and his father. We were rejoicing. Then nothing more. Friday June 3, he had what hopefully will be the last surgery on his left leg. Today, Sunday, June 5, he had his eyes open and appeared to track people in the room. So we may be on the road to recovery at last.
His physical body has and is healing fast. It is amazing, though, how that fades from importance, awful as his injuries were, with this continuing coma. Most days, there has been no step forward. Now for the last several days, there has been a small step forward, and then a retreat back into the coma.
Hopefully, this week, the path to healing will solidify, so that we can see our Danny returning.