Welcome
It’s Coming…
By Vinny Distefano
Well, what can I say? Angie and we have all come a long way this past year. I was recently speaking to my sister about where Angie was and where she is now. I have a great deal of respect and awe at what the doctors accomplished and how they saved Angie in the beginning. I will be forever grateful. An amazing array of tubes, machines and medicines. But their books stopped where Angie’s real recovery began. As she began to use less and less technology and more and more of what God gave her, the help ends. Just when she needed to shift gears and change to a different regiment of care, it was non-existent.
Naturally, the first year of her recovery was to get her thru the critical stages and get her off the machines. Then to slowly stop the medications to see if she would take over “running” her body again. As we watched her fight her way thru every stage, we asked, “Where can she go now to continue stimulating her body and mind to recover?” The short answer, “Nowhere!” Whoa…the answer in “the book” is, nowhere? Who ripped out the pages at the end of the book? Do you walk out of a ballgame before the ninth inning? Do you leave the movie theater before her hero rides off into the sunset? How could it be, who wrote these books??????????
Thru August 1999 to January 2001, we searched for answers, on the Web, local organizations, etc. not knowing where to go for help. Slowly, painfully slowly, we were finding information on alternative avenues to try. In January 2001, we began a concerted effort to ask the world thru the Internet and this newsletter, so The Angel-Hawk Times began. We wanted to keep everything we’d found available to other families going thru this. No one should have to search in the dark. Some answers began to filter in to guide us, but the realization of a knowledge void was also evident. So many people with the same questions, so many people getting the same answers from the same “books”. Sorry, there’s no data on this or that so insurance or government programs won’t cover it…It was that frustration that has led us to be begin the process of “covering it”. The process of getting a non-profit organization started is lengthy. It will take four to six months. But the goal is to get a real program of different therapies here in Central Florida for people with Traumatic Brain Injuries. Every program we’ve contacted has rejected Angie for one reason or another, but the bottom line revolves around two scales, The Glasgow Coma Scale and The Ranchos Scale. Each describes levels of consciousness, awareness, mobility, and vocal levels. Each program has a minimum level, which they have found to be necessary for admittance. Fall short of these levels and you’re out of the system on your own. The one’s I have contacted are all doing great work getting people back into this world again. There is nothing out there that will take someone who falls short, Sorry Angie, no pun intended (inside joke)
I have a passion to fill this void. So while we’re getting approval, we will continue to document Angie’s day to day in this newsletter and on film, to be aired in the future. Angie still talks to me in dreams. I pray for her to be able to take over this someday and tell you in her own words to find a way to pitch in. I never paid attention to the Life-Flight helicopter in the past, but for two and a half years, I can’t stop hearing it. It’s constantly in the air. I live just east of downtown Orlando where it is based, ORMC. Look down at the road and see all of the skid marks. The road is completely covered with them. How many of those families are going thru the same things we are? How many could we help? More questions, but this time I will find the answers. And at the same time, we’ll be writing a “new book”- to take over where there was a dead end before. We’re going into uncharted territory as far as awakening the mind, but since no one is willing to risk their reputations on saving even one person, I envision many different unconventional approaches to getting the person out of the dark and back into our lives…back into their lives.
Happy Birthday, Sweetie XXOOXX
Till next time, be safe…
Pass it on and tell a friend to stop by. Thanx
