DELETEDSCENES

PHOTO BY DANNY FULGENCIO

John Logan’s story is a real-life, localized version of the movie “Awakenings” (based on a nonfiction book by Oliver Sacks) featured in the January 2015 Advocate. Having suffered Parkinson’s for several years, Logan, his wife, children and grandchildren were at wit’s end and willing to do anything to regain some semblance of John’s previous vigorous, joy-filled self. Shortly after undergoing a relatively new treatment called Deep Brain Stimulation, the former airplane pilot, felt — for a brief, shining moment — fantastic. There were frustrating setbacks, but Logan still treasured the improvements, which ebbed and flowed, and afforded him more quality time with his grandkids. Photographer Danny Fulgencio says Logan’s interaction with the children must have trigged a memory from a seventh-grade English class: “My teacher had us look at this black-and-white photo of a little boy and an elderly gentleman. The man was seated on stairs, looking calm, worn and in tack-sharp focus. Half the little boy’s face filled the frame and he was so close to the lens as to be out of focus. She gave us a lesson in critical thinking

— the photo could be interpreted as showing the tested quietude of age juxtaposed with the rambunctious curiosity of youth. It was the first time I can recall understanding that a photograph could mean more than the literal interpretation of a scene.” Without even intending to, Fulgencio replicated the formation and depth in this image of John Logan and his grandson, Nash — only later did he recognize the similarities. One year after the photo shoot, the Logan family is doing “fairly well,” John’s wife Cindy says. “He has enjoyed activities which he had stopped: fishing in the Gulf of Mexico, bowling, hitting golf balls, and shooting hoops. He and (son) Kevin and Nash even have gone to shoot skeet a few times,” she reports. John also started attending regular sessions at Dallas Voice Project; the local nonprofit helps Parkinson’s patients strengthen their vocal chords, which often are weakened by the disease. Cindy adds that Deep Brain Stimulation is not for the faint of heart and the results are not perfect, “but we certainly are better off than we were prior to the surgery.”