This is one of the better stories around. Captain Trevor Greene who was chopped in the back of his head with an axe was paralysed and mute after the attack is making a come back.
Anne McIlroy
Ottawa — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009 12:11AM EST Last updated on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009 3:19AM EST
His voice is raspy, the words come slowly. Trevor Greene says it is because he no longer has the reflex to breathe before he speaks, so he has to remind himself constantly to take in air while he talks.
Yet that he speaks at all, let alone in front of large crowds, as he did in Toronto this week, defies the grim prognosis that doctors described to his fiancée, Debbie Lepore, when he was in a coma after suffering a horrific brain injury almost four years ago. One physician told her to put him in a long-term-care home. She told herself, “They didn't know Trevor.” She was right.
The 44-year-old harnessed his willpower to the latest neuroscience, to build new pathways to get signals from his brain to his muscles so he could move and talk again.
He can talk, type, sit up and stand. He vows he is going to walk down the aisle at his July 24 wedding. Ms. Lepore said she doesn't expect that dramatic an entrance. “I'll be happy if he takes one step.”
Slow, but staggering progress - The Globe and Mail
Anne McIlroy
Ottawa — From Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009 12:11AM EST Last updated on Saturday, Nov. 14, 2009 3:19AM EST
His voice is raspy, the words come slowly. Trevor Greene says it is because he no longer has the reflex to breathe before he speaks, so he has to remind himself constantly to take in air while he talks.
Yet that he speaks at all, let alone in front of large crowds, as he did in Toronto this week, defies the grim prognosis that doctors described to his fiancée, Debbie Lepore, when he was in a coma after suffering a horrific brain injury almost four years ago. One physician told her to put him in a long-term-care home. She told herself, “They didn't know Trevor.” She was right.
The 44-year-old harnessed his willpower to the latest neuroscience, to build new pathways to get signals from his brain to his muscles so he could move and talk again.
He can talk, type, sit up and stand. He vows he is going to walk down the aisle at his July 24 wedding. Ms. Lepore said she doesn't expect that dramatic an entrance. “I'll be happy if he takes one step.”
Slow, but staggering progress - The Globe and Mail
