Random Acts of Kindness

I was sharing a story written by a fellow teacher on this topic awhile back with my students. Soon after that I received an email informing me that one of my former students, a child just like yours, was in need. Ryan was in my 4th grade class 2001-2002, back when I was still in the building, in Room 12.

Thank you for your time, I'm sure anything would help. Here's his story, excerpted from the email I recieved from a family friend of Ryan's:

The story hasn’t changed – but Ryan has. He is such a great kid. He has a solid spirit, a sense of humor, and his same love for life and fun. He’s finding his way through many, many struggles.

As you remember:
School was cancelled – too much snow and ice to get kids safely to school. Like so many kids, 14 year old Ryan Greenen went sledding with friends that morning in January 2007. A single moment forever changed the course of Ryan’s life. As he slid down the snow and ice covered driveway, he went too far and ended up in the road. Within seconds, he was pinned beneath a van, his head slammed against the icy Evergreen Highway.

Ryan was taken to the Trauma Center at Emanuel Hospital by ambulance and was in ICU for weeks where his survival was questioned hour by hour. The brain pressure Ryan experienced with this traumatic injury threatened to take his life. But the fighter in Ryan fought hard to live. He spent months in the hospital fighting through fevers, seizures, and continued brain swelling while doctors crafted medicinal combinations to keep Ryan alive and stable.

Colleen and Kent never left Ryan alone in the hospital, ever. They ate, slept and showered there. From the beginning, they have been at the forefront of managing Ryan’s care amongst a cacophony of doctors, nurses, and therapists. After finally leaving the hospital, Kent and Colleen have tended to Ryan’s care, meticulously managing all aspects of his recovery. In addition to fundamental care, they have kept Ryan attending every sporting event, wheel chair or walker in tow, in which he would have previously participated. To soccer tournaments, basketball games, movies, swim parties - they have not once let Ryan stop believing in what he dreams for himself. The doctors believe that Ryan’s persistent activity in his world has kept him reaching and progressing beyond early predictions. Now, he desperately wants to literally take the next step and walk as well as talk and play like Ryan.

This accident has changed the Greenens’ lives. They are looking to move smaller and allow Colleen to reduce her job responsibilities to manage the multitude of hospital therapists: physical, speech, and occupational; school personnel: teachers, aides, specialists, and Ryan’s interactions with his peers. Ryan simply needs full time care.

Prior to this accident, Ryan was a scholar athlete at MVHS. As a freshman, he played junior varsity tennis, JV basketball, and was slated to play soccer where he likely would have made the varsity squad. Ryan has played club select soccer and club premier baseball for years. Ryan started the next sport season before ending the previous. He would practice basketball for several hours and still make it to evening soccer practices for two more hours. He was a physical machine. Ryan’s dreams for his future involved sports – playing and coaching. Challenging his body is nothing new to him, but it doesn’t respond like he remembers. He is re-learning the simplest of muscle functions. Now, Ryan is competing against his stubborn body to simply walk again.

As a result of his traumatic brain injury, Ryan’s core continues to lack the ability to readily self-balance. Once he loses center, he can’t self correct and can easily fall. Ryan’s control over his leg muscles is improving. He has taken multiple steps without his walker – but always with someone near as he will eventually lose his center of balance. He walks with a walker or moves through routines in a wheel chair. The Greenens and Ryan push to leave the wheel chair behind and for Ryan to gain independence through the walker and eventually walking independently.

Ryan’s speech is slow and slurred. Listening, one would think Ryan was struggling mentally to make sense. That is far from reality. While his processing time is slow, Ryan’s emotional and intellectual intelligence is intact. He is plagued still with short-term memory loss, but his recall and memory is constantly improving. His wit is quick and his emotional need and appreciation for friends and family is great.

With his emotional intelligence, Ryan is keenly aware of his division from friends due to his physical challenges. This once incredibly social and athletically gifted teenager finds his phone ringing less and less. Yet he’s on the sidelines at soccer games, sitting on the bench during basketball games, and in the dugout during baseball games serving as inspiration and encouragement to the teammates with whom he has grown up. There is nowhere else he would rather be – except on the court and field competing and playing.

At this time, Ryan continues to work hard – accomplishing physical repair and mental capacity beyond what doctors believed possible given the traumatic injuries. But Ryan is struggling to find where he fits – where he belongs - who he will be. He remembers who he was pre accident – exactly, and struggles to place himself within this post accident body.

In addition to the incurred and ongoing medical expenses, Kent and Colleen are faced with college bills as Ryan’s older brother headed off to Washington State University this fall.
The Greenens have been overwhelmed and grateful with the help from friends, coworkers, and people they don’t even know. Throughout Ryan’s marathon injury and recovery, the Greenens have been buoyed time and again by the caring community in which they live. It has been incredibly difficult to accept generosity, but they simply could not have survived this extraordinary challenge alone.

I am hoping through your donations via the www. Friendsofryan@greenen.net web site that we can to leave the Greenens with a more manageable life.

You can donate in one of two ways:
1. Quick and easy easy easy – go to http://www.friendsofryan.info/trustfund.htm
Using a credit card or Paypal if you are a member, you can quickly and easily contribute.
2. A second option is to mail a check written to Kent Greenen to
The Ryan Greenen Trust
Ronald W. Greenen, Attorney at Law
Greenen & Greenen
1104 Main St., Suite 400
Vancouver, WA 98660

Thank you, for your consideration. Ryan continues to improve and grow but the challenges continue to mount. It was his life we desperately hoped for 21 months ago – and in many ways we remain hopeful for exactly that. Hopeful for the time when Ryan will regain his life and become the teenager he dreams to be again.