Grow Or Pay: The Complete Story
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The Next Pitfall
Since waking up in the hospital, Dave's voice had been merely a whisper. So, at the suggestion of his Speech Therapist at Joh n Heinz, he went to see an Ear, Nose and Throat surgeon. Much to his dismay, Dave found out that both of his vocal cords were paralyzed and, while there was a chance that they may heal, it didn't look good. On top of this, Dave was still suffering with extreme double vision and no one could say when or if his vision would return to normal. All anyone could say was that they saw no reason why it shouldn't return to normal at some point. And there was still one more blow to be dealt...While at an appointment with the neurosurgeon, Dave talked her into having him sent for a cat scan right then and there to see if he could finally lose the incredibly uncomfortable cervical collar. She said she would call the next day to let him know if he could switch to a soft collar and even gave him one to take home with him. The next day Dave, fully expecting to finally be released from the dreaded cervical collar, could hardly contain himself while waiting for the phone call. Finally, the call came. Only what Dave heard wasn't what he expected. Instead, the neurosurgeon informed him that he needed to be re-admitted to the hospital due to the fact that one of his vertebrae had shifted in fron of another and would have to be fastened into place with a metal plate and screws. It usually meant a one to three day hospital stay bu, being on Coumadin (a blood thinner), Dave would have to be admitted to the hospital almost a week ahead of time in order to get him off the Coumadin. The operation, thankfully, went really well and Dave felt fine even just a few hours after the operation. There was only one problem...They needed to get Dave back on the Coumadin before he could go home. So a one to three days hospital stay wound up turning into a sixteen day stay! Dave was, literally, in the hospital so long that he had seven different roomates while he was there!
Damon
Leighann
The Revelation
Upon finally returning home, Dave soon felt well enough to move back into his own house. Being back home, reminded him of where things lay right before he was in the accident. He had recently just ended a four year run with his band Kartune and had just begun the preliminary stages of recording an original cd. Dave greatly wanted to get back to this but he had to face reality. His thinking process, while improving, was still really a mess. He could barely play guitar at all anymore. One hand just didn't want to do what the other was doing. He also still only had a whisper for a voice. So trying to tackle an original project seemed like a mammoth undertaking. So, as a way to sort of force his brain to improve, re-teach himself the recording process, and improve his playing in a more relaxed way without having to worry about writing music and lyrics and really making something spectacular, he decided to try recording a cover tune. Dave had always been a big fan of Tommy Shaw (Styx/Damn Yankees) and loved Tommy's first solo album butnever really cared for the production on it. So he decided to take a shot at it himself. Hey...so what if it didn't come out right?...It's only a cover song! Much to his amazement, not only did the music actually come out quite well, but Dave's playing started improving quite rapidly. Well, at least he could play somewhat anyway. So now what?....Record another song. This time Dave attempted something a little different. A more rocked up version of Kool & The Gang's '80's hit "Misled".Things ran much smoother with this song and the recording was a lot of fun. During this whole period, Dave had been secretly wishing that there was something he could do to thank the people that helped him in his time of need. It was a thought that was starting to plague him constantly. The answer would soon hit him. While riding in the car with Tracy one day, Dave played her the tracks he had recorded. Surprisingly ( to Dave anyway), she seemed to think the recordings were really good and started asking questions about the whole recording process andreally showing a genuine interest in it all. This struck a chord with Dave. For the first time since he woke up from the coma, he didn't feel completely useless. So he decided to take this a step futher and, since he only had music recorded, ask some friends to sing on the tracks. Then it hit him!...Why not do a complete album of cover tunes, his musician friends sing on it, and offer it to people as a piece of himself...a way to say thank you for everything everyone had done for him. It seemed like a neat idea, but was he just kidding himself? Was it really just silly? He decided to test the waters and ran it by his good friend and old Poptart Monkeys bandmate, Rob Hampton. Rob seemed to think it was a great idea! So he ran it by a few more of his musician friends and the reaction was all the same! Houston, we have liftoff!
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