Opinion: No worries, says Jeremy Vasquez

My funny valentine.

Sweet comic valentine.

You make me smile with my

heart.

Your looks are laughable,

Unphotographable.

Yet you’re my favorite work

of art.

- Rodgers/Hart

Valentines go out to Carlton Avenue, where a mother-andson love story has endured against the longest odds.

Jeremy Vasquez, 16, had a part of his head blown away by a shotgun blast Nov. 6, when he was one of a group in a car trying to escape a shotgun-wielding teenager, Andrew Brown. Brown wounded Jeremy and killed 18-year-old Michael Fisher before turning the shotgun on himself.

Jeremy’s mother, Lorrie Vasquez, made the frenzied trip to a Denver hospital, where doctors were pessimistic.

“They said there was nothing they could do,” Lorrie recalled in her living room Tuesday. “The next morning, they said, ‘He’s brain-dead. There’s nothing we can do about it.’”

Lorrie went to her son’s bedside and said, “Give me a sign.”

The doctors saw no flicker of recognition, but Lorrie couldn’t let go.

“I said, ‘Don’t give him his last rites.’ Then a couple of hours later, he had a gag reflex and there was some corneal movement.”

That twitch of an eye was the beginning of what has been, and what will be, a long road to recovery.

Jeremy can’t walk. He has trouble with reading and writing but can perform some functions on a computer. His memory is almost totally restored. He is lucid, but his speech is slurred. He’ll give you a direct, clear- eyed look when shaking your hand with a firm grip.

Asked how to account for such a miraculous recovery, Jeremy turned to his mom sitting next to him on the sofa, saying: “God and you and the doctors.”

He smiled; they embraced.

“It’s just brought us closer,” Lorrie said.

For a living, breathing miracle, Jeremy doesn’t look like much.

A protective helmet makes him look like a hockey player. He has buckshot in his brain and near his left eye, which also has glass fragments imbedded next to it. When he takes the helmet off, the flattened left side of his head is revealed.

But consider: Jeremy was in a coma for more than two weeks, until just before Thanksgiving. In his first coherent hours he was informed that his future was uncertain and told that his friend, Michael Fisher, was dead. He didn’t get to go home until mid-January.

Importantly, Jeremy has friends who have stopped by regularly to visit. The equation of daily life comes down to a series of small steps, each marking meaningful progress.

“That’s how our life has turned out,” Lorrie said. “One day at a time. We worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes.”

Most of the bills are paid by Medicaid, but the program doesn’t cover everything.

An operation in coming weeks will install a plate, replacing a piece of skull that is gone for good and restoring the shape to his head.

He joked about his appearance. He said, “I can’t talk, but oh, well.”

Going to a speech pathologist is the next step.

Before the shooting, Lorrie worked at a doctor’s office, but she had to quit. “I’d rather be home with Jeremy and see him through,” she said.

Jeremy’s ambitions are modest. He wants to talk normally again, and he wants to walk and drive a car, have a girlfriend.

“That’s what we’re hoping,” Lorrie said, “that he can live a normal life again.”

On Tuesday, they were going to see Michael Fisher’s mother and planned to visit his grave.

In talking to Jeremy Vasquez, seeing his smile and watching him and his mother together, it sinks in that you really haven’t got a problem in the world.

And when you tell that to him, he says: “Me either.”

Contact Noreen at 636-0363 or noreen@gazette.com. He appears every other Friday on KOAA’s Comcast Channel 9 at 4 p.m.

THE VICTIMS FUND

The Victims Fund for Jeremy Vasquez, account No. 477509, has been established at Ent Federal Credit Union. Any of Ent’s branches can accept donations.