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Brain Go BOOM!<br />
Author/Survivor: John Cooper<br />
Chapter 34: Driving Miss Daisy Never Went Like this<br />
S<br />
till unable to drive, I was chauffeured around three times a<br />
week, back and forth to my therapy sessions. But unlike<br />
Miss Daisy, I sat in the front seat of the cars! I was fortunate<br />
enough to have transportation and was able to switch rehab<br />
facilities to one closer to home. I continued my speech,<br />
occupational and physical therapy at Hospital D, which<br />
happened to be the first hospital I went to with my bad<br />
headache. My brothers at the Ancient order of Irishmen had<br />
supported me from day one and continued to do so by driving me to and from therapy. Matt had<br />
an oversized, framed get-well poster made where my brothers wrote their own messages on it.<br />
Matt presented it to me after I awoke from my coma in Hospital J.<br />
My brothers provided roundtrip transportation to my much needed therapy. I didn’t like<br />
being chauffeured around, but I was very thankful for their support. When I was first<br />
hospitalized, they came over and dropped off meals for my family and made sure my walkways<br />
and driveway were shoveled during that two-plus-foot snow storm. They made so many meals<br />
for my family that someone had to bring over an extra freezer to store it all in my garage. Their<br />
bountiful support was mind blowing. Do you see how lucky I am? They’ve been there for me<br />
during the good years and the not-so-good years. And no matter what, they’ve stood by me!<br />
One particular therapy afternoon, I came out of<br />
Hospital D where I had just had a sub-par therapy session.<br />
It was just plain, old crappy. I climbed up into Jack O’s<br />
big, red truck and started dropping F-bombs and cursing in<br />
pure frustration because I believed my progress wasn’t<br />
going as well as I thought it should. Startled, he looked<br />
over at me and slowly pointed to the backseat of his truck.<br />
BOOM! His two-year-old grandson was sitting in a car seat right behind me. The little boy<br />
stared me dead straight in the eyes and looked at his grandfather as if to say, Hey Pop-Pop, who<br />
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