VA Boston Healthcare System

“​Look, Ma, no hands!”: Jay Keyser’s eighteen-month journey from incapacitation to learning how to stand by himself.

I was flat on my back staring in terror at the hall ceiling, like a turtle some malicious child had upended. I couldn’t move my arms or legs. My wife, Nancy, heard me cry out. She came running and saw me floundering at the foot of the stairs, where I had fallen midway through my morning exercises.

“Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” Nancy said in a panicked tone of voice. She frantically dialed 911. In a matter of moments, I heard a siren come to a high-pitched halt outside. Several black-clothed, heavy-booted first responders came stampeding up the stairs to our house. The one in charge leaned over me. His face hovered above mine like a harvest moon.

“Can you hear me?” he bellowed.

“Yes,” I said.

“Good! Don’t move a muscle,” he commanded.

He said something to his partner. She disappeared and returned with what looked like a large valise. I heard it click, a metallic clang, and next thing I knew my head was being screwed in place with what felt like a vice. They placed me on a stretcher. Although I could feel my body tipping from side to side as they navigated the landing and the stairs, my head remained absolutely fixed.

I found myself surprised at how cold the outside air felt. I heard the back of an ambulance open. The stretcher slid inside. Someone got in with me. Someone else slammed the doors shut. All I could hear were noises from a game playing on a cell phone. I remember staring at the ceiling wondering why the lights were so bright.

Such small thoughts for so large an event. I couldn’t focus on the big picture—that here I was, at the age of seventy-eight, a professor of linguistics at MIT, a jazz trombonist, a father and husband who was possibly staring at my very last moments on earth. I thought I might never see Nancy or my children again.


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