Danson tells of wife’s struggle

Press, 21 June 1984, Page 13

Danson tells of wife’s struggle

Ted Danson has achieved success in his role as Sam Malone in “Cheers” but, according to him, his wife set a much more inspiring example. On the day before Christmas, 1979, at a time when her husband was acting in one of the most highly prized roles of his career, Casey Coates-Danson, a succesful designer in the prime of her' life, suffered a severe stroke while giving birth to her first child. For the last two months of her pregnancy she had been confined to bed with abnormally high blood pressure. The forceful contractions of labour further elevated the pressure until a

capillary burst in her brain. No-one recognised it until the birth was almost over. Fortunately Katherine

Danson was born healthy. Her mother was not so lucky. Before the horrified eyes of her husband, she lay helpless on the delivery table, paralysed on her left side.

Thus began a difficult and valiant uphill struggle that has only recently begun to subside. Danson was devasted — “I was totally out to lunch.”

The neurosurgeon did not offer much hope, telling Danson that his wife would probably never walk again. She certainly looked bad. Her speech was slurred and she could not shift her eyes to look to the left. It was three weeks before she could even move.

Casey Coates-Danson refused to accept that she would be less than healthy, and free from any handicap. The doctors told her that whatever she achieved in the first year would be all she could expect. She would not believe that either.

It was the baby that really kept Mrs Coates-Dan-son going. Ted Danson would sneak the baby into the hospital and they would joke about which one of them, the baby or Casey, would be able to crawl first and to walk first. They both walked at eight months. To get Casey Coates-Dan-son back on her feet took two years. Although two sets of grandparents arrived to help and a nanny was hired to care for the child, and an occupational therapist came daily for a programme of rehabilitative exercises, much of the burden of helping her get well fell on Danson. He dressed her, fed her, combed her hair and put on her makeup, and encouraged her in her exercises.

“I was mostly a cheerleader and a husband, not a therapist,” he says. “Even then I’m afraid I was too efficient, too involved in getting things done, and forgot the emotional part.” He and Casey work out together three times a week, and attend counselling sessions together, trying to fit together and learn from the events of the past. “We’re no longer a tragic family,” Danson says. “That’s behind us. Now our view is toward the future.” 0 “Cheers” is screened on One at 9.30 p.m. on Thursdays.