I visited Bill Saturday evening and was cheered by seeing he was off the ventilator. He tries to talk now but it is difficult to understand him and it is frustrating for both of us. As his throat heals, I think his speech will become more intelligible. Yesterday he had a face mask for oxygen which annoyed him. This too has been removed and he now has only small tubes for his nostrils. As he becomes more cognizant, he also seems to be more anxious, as Abigail has described. But Abigail has a wonderful way with him and seems to soothe him as does the music that she brought. She is so patient and her wonderful sense of humor really lifts spirits. Bill’s room is also more cheerful with very cute pictures of Olivia and Sophie on the wall where he can see them and the delightful get well cards they drew.
Bill still has his sense of humor. There is a screen in the room which shows beautiful pictures of nature. There was one of a huge waterfall and Bill and I both smiled when it appeared. I said- Just like your waterfall demo, right? He nodded. Al Yeck and Bill concocted a demonstration of motion aftereffects with a device that rapidly moved painted horizontal stripes in a downward motion. After 30 seconds or so of staring at the stripes, you move your eyes to a picture of a huge waterfall next to the stripes. The water in the waterfall appears to rapidly flow upwards. This never fails to elicit yelps of surprise from students and is a very imaginative way of demonstrating a fundamental property of perception- the effects of neuronal fatigue of specific motion detectors. Bill with characteristic generosity let me use this for my classes and explained the phenomenon to me so I did not sound like an idiot.
No comments:
Post a Comment