From @uga.cc.uga.edu:LOJBAN@CUVMB.BITNET Thu Dec 3 20:01:31 1992 Received: from uga.cc.uga.edu by MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU via SMTP; Fri, 4 Dec 1992 01:05:14 -0500 Received: from UGA.CC.UGA.EDU by uga.cc.uga.edu (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 9861; Fri, 04 Dec 92 01:01:46 EST Received: from UGA.BITNET by UGA.CC.UGA.EDU (Mailer R2.08 PTF008) with BSMTP id 6008; Fri, 04 Dec 92 01:01:45 EST Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 01:01:31 -0500 Reply-To: Logical Language Group Sender: Lojban list From: Logical Language Group Subject: Athelstan update X-To: lojban@cuvmb.cc.columbia.edu X-Cc: glenn@bessel.umd.edu To: Erik Rauch Status: RO X-Status: Message-ID: And has just reminded me that I haven't posted on Athelstan in a while. Since there is some news, I'll do so now. As some of you may recall, Athelstan, one of Lojban's main leaders, suffered a brain injury in an auto accident in February. He has slowly worked back into consciousness, and then with therapy, towards regaining some semblance of a normal life. He was discharged from inpatient status in July, and went to live with his elderly parents (who are Christaians with a conservative lifestyle, quite the opposite of the way Athelstan has lived since I have known him). He was able to pay a short visit to LogFest last August, which was the last time I reported his status. He has been in daily therapy since then, and has made some progress. He still moves, walks, and talks slowly, and does not have very good coordination. I fear his calligraphy skills may never return: he doesn;t even try to write unless he has to. I gather from what his parents say that most things that require physical coordination, or things that require more than one mental conscious activity at a time are still beyond him. He apparently can make reasonable decisions as long as the choices are binary, but with open ended decision-selections, he either chooses irrationally (on the basis of what he wants at the moment, perhaps), or is completely at a loss. Meanwhile, due to their differences in attitude and lifestyle, the stresses between A. and his parents have been growing. He wants out, and to resume what he thinks is a normal lifestyle (though to put it frankly, he is far from capable of any normal lifestyle yet). Maryland's indigent medical system ( (Medicaid) has just given him his out, perhaps. He is being discharged from his current therapy program as of tomorrow. He is apparently trying to use this situation as his opportunity to go back to work at some (low-paying probably) job that will give him back his "freedom", and will probably move back to the DC area from Baltimore. If he can work out the finances, he may be down here in a week or two, but his parents are hoping that financial realities will force him to stay up there till around February - not because they want to control his life, but because the more time he has to regain mental skills, the more likely he will be able to make it on his own. The few months might also give him time to qualify for some long term disability income, a safety net that may make his attempt to regain independence more likely to succeed. Meanwhile, he has had a steel plate put in his skull to replace that removed in surgery to treat his brain injury. Also, using a large amount of money donated by friends at a Clam Chowder concert last spring, he is going to be able to have his mouth rebuilt: due to the accident, and preexisting dental problems, he has had to have several teeth removed this year and only has a few left. The dental work being done will be minimally cosmetic to keep it cheap (doing the job 'right' and 'pretty' would cost over $10,000). The donated money will also pay legal bills, and other expenses, and may also be used to cover some of the things A. needs to get started on his own again. The money is being handled as a trust, due to the complicated rules that permit him to have indigent medical care, and the fact that his father, who is retired, has no means to cover even a fraction of the bills if someone other than the state must pay them (his doctor bills probably are sevral hundred thousand dollars already. As for Athelstan and Lojban: he is still interested,and asked me a few weeks ago for the updated gismu list, which I gave him when I took the kids to meet him 2 weeks ago. But frankly, I do not expect him to resume significant Lojban work in the near future; things have moved along a lot in 10 months that he has missed, and left him behind, but more importantly, Athelstan has always seemed unwilling to risk the criticism of being severely in error on technical matters, and may be unwilling to try anything more than rudimentary usages until he is confident that he has totally mastered them. As most of you have seen on this list, even the best among us make mistakes and suffer confusion among our readers who read things differentlt than we intended. That is how you learn a language: by making mistakes. But I'm not sure that A.'s ego is up to the point that he can live with the mistakes that he must make if he is going to learn from them. I hope that I'm wrong, but have seen no evidence to indicate so. People who want to write to A. may do so care of his father: Athelstan c/o Mr. William Palmer 1219 McCurley Ave. Baltimore MD 21228 If you write to him, be especially detailed in identifying yourself. His memory of things before the accident is fairly minimal, and he needs lots of memory hooks to place an event, aperson, or a situation. The more information you provide him, the more likely it will be that you will help him reconstruct the jigsaw puzzle of his memory that remains shattered. I will keep people informed; I wish I could be more optimistic, but the early termination of his therapy, and his efforts to move out into a real world that he probably will have trouble coping with, has be pessimistic. But then I am a parent that just had 2 kids start school in a language that they neither speak or understand and they are doing fine - so maybe I'm just a worry wart. lojbab ---- lojbab lojbab@grebyn.com Bob LeChevalier, President, The Logical Language Group, Inc. 2904 Beau Lane, Fairfax VA 22031-1303 USA 703-385-0273