2001 started with a road trip to Florida for 3 weeks of hyperbaric oxygen therapy treatments. I wasn't sure I was really "up" for twice-a-day treatments, but getting out of Michigan during the middle of winter sure sounded like a good idea.

Here's a sign that you don't see very often in Michigan. This is from a wildlife refuge on Sanibel Island. We had a serious mission for our trip, but we also got to play "tourist" from time to time, too.

My mom and dad have said that they'll do almost anything and go almost anywhere to help me get better. But no, we did NOT actually go on to Cuba. But Dad and I DID go to Key West and the southernmost point in the continental U.S. Funny, but at that moment, we were closer to Havana than we were to Miami.

Seeing all of the tourist sites was fun, but the main purpose of the trip was our twice-daily visits to the Perlmutter Hyperbaric Center in Naples, Florida. I had used a portable style HBO chamber in the past, but this was my first experience with a world-class unit.

The center has 4 of these beauties and I had two 1-hour sessions each day. Receiving pure oxygen under increased atmospheric pressure is supposed to help improve brain function. Hmmm, I wonder if that benefit was offset by watching movies like the "Terminator" while I was in the chamber?

Mom joined us in Florida for the last couple of days, so that she could quiz the doctors about HBO, nutritional supplements, neurology, and brain function in general. We also dragged her out into the sunshine for a few moments, too. After all, there aren't many palm trees back home.

It was a great trip, but it was fun to get back home, too. A few days after getting back to Michigan, a little standard poodle puppy named Max came to live with us. He and our cat Sebastian add a great deal of laughter to the house now -- and Max should be a great companion when he grows up, too.

Like TBI recovery, building this web site is also a long-term process. My parents and I started it, to help me remember what has happened. Perhaps others can learn from it, too. Primary pages on the site at this time are as follows: