It’s been awhile since I’ve listed any news on Daniel, so I’ll reprint Rebecca’s latest e-mail she sent out today.

Thank you for your prayers Saints,

God bless you saints! Thank you for your prayers.
In His love,
Rebecca

Well Daniel came home today. We visited him for a while this evening and it was wonderful to see him again. He was in good spirits and knew who Liz and I were, but did ask who “this little guy” was, referring to Joshua.

He showed us how he could lift his left leg and move it around and was eating dinner and all. He carried a full conversation with us and I see improvement since the last time I spoke to him. I did get to talk to him by ourselves for a while and we just talked guy stuff. You know, cars and building stuff and that kind of thing and I could tell he was happy to talk about it. He likes the new Vette (C6) and was blown away when I told him about the Dodge Ram RTS truck with the Viper engine it. He liked hearing about that.

I didn’t bring my camera tonight because I didn’t want to over due it since it was his first night home. We’re going to stop by tomorrow and I’ll get some pix of him then.

So, tonight is his first night home and his first night sleeping in his house since that grim night in early December. He said he was glad to be home and I know everyone there in the Rickner family is glad to have him home, too. God is good.

I just spoke to Patti and she told me that Daniel is coming home this Saturday! He was recently moved from the rehab and the new place just isn’t giving the attention Daniel needs. I won’t go into details because they really don’t matter, but I will say that Patti is happy to bring him home.

Now the even more exciting news; he’s moving his left leg! Yes, leg! It started with him being able to move his toe, on command, Sunday and Patti said as of yesterday, he’s able to move his leg up and down! He even used his arms to pull it up further! This is great news and an awesome praise to our Lord. It’s only been a few months since the accident and he is moving his leg. This is such a positive thing and gives us all hope that he will soon be able to start moving his other leg and maybe even lead to greater things.

Keep Patti in your prayers as her life is about to become very difficult with Daniel’s arrival home. She will have to take care of many, many, needs of Daniel. It’s going to be a new and trying experience for her, but she has great hope in Jesus’ strength and great love for Daniel to do this. We have seen her grow in the Lord immensely and this growth is going to help her through this tough season.

I’ll be sure to have pix and an update up here when Daniel does get home and I look forward to posting it soon!

I just got off the phone with Patty and she just very excitedly told me that Daniel ate orally for the first time tonight! In fact, the hospital was surprised that he started so soon.

So, what did he eat? Chicken, noodles and green beans. He enjoyed it and was very happy to eat something with his mouth, I’m sure. The hospital will keep him on the tube for a few more days just to insure that he can continue eating orally and then they’ll remove the tube.

Praise God and thank Him mightily for this great thing! Woo hoo!

Sorry for the delay on this update, I’ve been busy and like to update when I go to get lots of detail for you the reader. But, it’s been over a week since I last went, so I did want to give you something before my next visit.

Elizabeth and the kids went with Patti last week to see him and Liz said it went really well. Daniel didn’t know who Liz was at first, calling her Mrs. Brown. But after some help, he got her name and then knew Katelyn and with some help even Joshua, whom he’s probably only seen a handful of times prior to the accident. This is good due to the lack of short term memory. But again, he was helped on getting Joshua’s name.

Daniel enjoyed his time with Joshua actually playing with him. He would make funny noises at Joshua and talk to him. Liz said he was totally grabbing Joshua’s attention and even making him laugh. Children really do brighten people up!

Liz said they saw him do therapy and Joshua enjoyed showing off his new trick to Daniel, crawling on the mats. Liz said that Daniel did really well in therapy and was impressed with him using his wheel chair.

Patti told me Monday that she has decided after much prayer and discussion with family and friends that she will be bringing Daniel home after he’s released. Scheduled release is February 14th, which could changed due to his feeding tube. She is excited to have him home but at the same time a little nervous with the tough road that lies before her and him. But she has faith in God that He will be there for both of them and things will be fine.

Be praying for Patti that she will have continued strength, both physically and mentally, when Daniel comes home. Pray for their financial future and for Daniel’s continued recover. Pray that him coming home will have him jumping leaps and bounds cognitively and that his physical condition will improve.

I hope that the entire family can go see him in the next week and that I will have some more pictures and a great entry for you all to read. Keep checking back for updates. Thanks!

Today Patti and I did the trek over the Benicia Bridge to see Daniel in Vallejo, just one exit south of Marine World. It was an overcast day, but the sun came out soon after we arrived. When we got there, it took us a while to find Daniel, but with help of his RN, Joseph, we found him in therapy learning to clean his face with a towel. He did a might fine job and was pretty happy to show us again. His therapist told us that she added make-shift grips to his wheel chair’s tires and he was able to wheel himself in from another room down the hall. From my judgment, I’d say it was a good 200 feet from that room. Not bad, Daniel!

We got there just has his physical therapy was ending and his next task was speech therapy. So, we sat in on a session and she filled us in on his progress. He is becoming more cognitive over the past week. He still has problems with dates, saying it was 1976 most of this week but he said it was 2005 yesterday. That’s not correct, but better. H does know the month we’re in.

His awareness is also improving. Once again, h did know who I was. In fact, every time I’ve visited him, he has correctly identified me. He introduced me and Patti to his speech therapist when she asked him who are we were. He said, “This is my wife, Patti, and this is Sven.” He said my name perfect and very clear. I told the therapist my name alone was good therapy and she laughed and agreed.

She told us that Daniel played Black Jack yesterday. This is great as it means he can do math! Though he needed to be prompted to say hit or stay. Another great thing about this is that he didn’t have to be retaught the rules. He knew that the Jack was 10 points and the Ace was worth 1 or 11 points. This is great thing according to his therapist.

After speech, we went to his room and I sat down next to him and asked him some questions that he did pretty well with. I asked him what color is house is and he got it right by saying softly, “Blue.” I followed it with, “Do you live in a one or two story house?” He correctly answered two. Then I asked how many garage doors he had. Again, he answered correctly with two. Then I asked him the tough question: “Who’s room can see my house.” To my astonishment, he said, “Jared’s.”! I was only surprised because his speech therapist told us that he didn’t have that good of a hold of short term memory and being we’ve only lived across the street from him for four years, I didn’t think he’d remember. But he did! I then asked him what poster was in the garage that showed a man with tools on him. He said, “Jesus?” I said, “No, the guy grunts,” and then Daniel said, “My grandpa.” Patti and I laughed and we told him it was Tim the Tool Man and then Daniel smiled back. When Patti asked him the children’s ages, he pretty much nailed them all! So, we were very encouraged by this. He’s also talking more clearly and sounds more like “Daniel” then ever.

On another praise, his left leg was twitching. In fact, before we left, it was twitching a lot. His RN said this is good indicating that his brain realizes there’s “something” down there and that he may be getting sensation back. He may regain feeling in the future!

Daniel’s been wearing mittens that he doesn’t particular care for. When Patti asked the RN about it, he said that he had spoken to Daniel’s doctor and as of yesterday he did not want to remove them. The reason being is that Daniel removed his nose feeding tube so often that the doctor doesn’t want the same happening for his new stomach tube. So, by keeping mittens on him, this hinders Daniel from grabbing the surgically installed tube from his stomach. Once Daniel shows that he is not trying to remove it and the tubes point of entry is better healed, the doctor will consider keeping the mittens off. During our visit, they were off as the RN felt that was fine since someone was there to observe him and prevent him from removing the tube.

So, that was it in a nutshell. Patti was very excited and said every time she sees him, he just gets better and better. This time his head stood up straight the entire visit and he spoke more and more loudly. He seemed more in touch then in past visits and she was just so thankful to the Lord for his progress. We prayed with him before leaving and I could tell he was very happy we did that with him. So please be keeping him in your prayers, too, as they are working!!

Oh ya, don’t forget to check out the new pictures in the digipix section!

Patti and I will be going to visit Daniel today. We’ll visit him in-between breaks and I hope to get some of his physical therapy in digipix, too. We’ll be leaving around 10:00 and returning around 15:30. So, stay tuned for pix and a full report tonight!

Patti and the family went to see Daniel Saturday and he had a short day with his physical training. So, he wasn’t too tired to visit and wasn’t asleep. But he wasn’t talking much, either. He shook his head in response to many things when spoken to. Patti encouraged him to speak to them but she found only when he got agitated or upset did he talk. So, he’s been quiet of late. She did notice that he does listen very intently, though, and you can tell the thinking process is there.

He is interacting with everyone and having fun with the family. At one point during their visit, Patti was “chasing” the kids by pushing Daniel in his wheel chair. They all were laughing and when they got close to Stephanie, Daniel leaned over to “grab” her. Patti had to push him back up to his proper seating position, but she could tell he really enjoyed the game. That made them all very happy.

To conclude this update, he’ll be getting his feeding tube inserted directly to his stomach today. It’s a local surgery procedure and he shouldn’t need to go under. The nurse told Patti that’s a quick and fairly routine procedure. So, pray that it goes well and that it won’t be needed too long there.

Patti hopes to get out there tomorrow and see him again and I’ll get you updates when I get them. Again, I hope to get out there soon to get some pictures up for you all to see. Keep praying for him and thank you for all your support!

Patti went to go see Daniel with Daniel’s cousin Nadine to see him for New Years Eve. When they got there, they found Daniel sitting in wheel chair. Patti was just elated! She was hugging and kissing him. She could not stop telling me just how over joyed she was to see him sitting up and in a chair. To be able to give him the affection she’s been dying to give him all this time was such a wonderful thing for her. It was awesome to hear her tell me this last night!

Daniel does seem to still have problems with his short term memory. He sometimes doesn’t know who people are, including Patti. The nurses did tell her, however, that he does talk about her to them and he does know who she is. Just from time to time, the short term memory “…isn’t there” as Patti told me. Related to that, he still seems to be in the “fog” about things, according to his doctors. Such as swallowing. They tried to feed him a little something recently and he wasn’t able to swallow. When the nurse put pressure on his tongue, he kinda “got it” and swallowed. So, they are hopeful that he’ll remember how do this soon.

Speaking of food, it looks like he’s going to get his feeding tube moved into his stomach directly after all. Daniel keeps removing the current tube out of his nose and this can cause major problems. The constant removal and re-inserting of the tube can cause infections, which the doctors want to avoid. It is also dangerous inserting the tube since it goes through his nasal cavity and is so close to the brain and the tube could cause damage to the brain if inserted incorrectly. Having to put the tube in often adds to this risk. So, it looks like Daniel will be getting this feeding tube in the stomach. Let’s be praying that he’ll learn to eat orally again and soon to not have to worry about this!

Another set back seems to be his liver. Patti couldn’t remember the details, but there is something wrong with his liver and the doctors are not quite sure what it is. They are running tests and will hopefully have the results back soon. They think that the liver may not be processing correctly due to all the medication in him and if this is the case, then it can be easily corrected. The doctors also believe this may be one reason why Daniel is lethargic, too.

Great news to report, Daniel is making improvements physically. When the nurses get him out of bed, he actually helps them moving and pushing. This is a great improvement since he has hardly been moving prior to this. As to his physical training, it is going well and it is working him. After a day of the rehabilitation, Daniel is literally exhausted. Patti was able to see some of it yesterday and she said she can understand now why he’s always sleeping when she sees him in the evening. He’s pooped! It’s good to see that he is putting all his might into this, as well all knew he would.

I just got off the phone with Patti and here are the details on Daniel’s move to the Physical Therapy center today. He’s on the third floor and when Patti and the kids and her mother got there at 12:30, he was awake. He no longer has his special bed, so the nurses have to move him manually, again. He shares the room with one other guy and the it has room for two more people. When they brought him in, he told the nurse, “My wife isn’t going to like this”. The nurse asked who his wife was and he told her, “Patti”. So that gave Patti a good chuckle when they got there and the nurse was immediately able to call her by name.

Patti says she can tell Daniel’s becoming frustrated because he can’t do things or can’t remember things. He shows this when you ask him something and you can see him trying to think and being frustrated that it’s not “coming” to words. The doctors have voiced concern and want to do another test on his head again as well as on his legs to see if theres been further clotting in his legs.

As to Daniel’s memory, Patti said she picked up that he’s talking about when he was a welder, which was about fifteen years ago. He seems to know Stephanie but kinda doesn’t recognize Jared and doesn’t Trevor. Though he smiles at Trevor when Trevor kisses him goodbye, as if he just kinda knows there’s a connection between them both. On a funny note, they asked Daniel who Joyce was and he sat and thought and thought and thought and finally said, “She’s a dusty old cloud.” Too funny. Patti told her, “That’s your new name, mom. Perfect!”

He has also lost a lot of weight, about 25 pounds, and they believe it’s mainly muscles.

As to his physical therapy, he’ll be doing it from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. six days a week. The doctor said that you can visit after that and any time on Sunday. The nurse did tell Patti that there may be breaks through the day and then you can visit during that time, too. They said those breaks will be better defined when his schedule is completed. Patti didn’t know if they’d be doing PT on Christmas day or not. One very neat thing about his room is that you can spend the night with him in the room with him if you want as he has a cot next to him. So Patti, his father, sister or anyone could spend the night with him if they wanted. The center was very open to that.

So that’s what Patti could remember. She hopes that she can get there on Christmas and I hope to get out there soon, too. I’d like to get some pictures of his new place for you all to see and get a better idea of what he has a head of him. Please keep him and his family in prayer as their journey has just begun. Thanx!