Rolling Stone Special Collectors Edition - Neil Young

Speaking Out by Cameron Crowe - 08/14/1975 - page 24

I was in and out of hospitals for the two years between "After the Gold Rush"
and "Harvest". I have one weak side, and all the muscles slipped. I couldn't
hold my guitar up. I could stand up for only four hours a day. The doctors
were starting to talk about wheelchairs, so I had some disks removed. But for
the most part, I spent two years flat on my back.

"Do you still have seizures?"
Yeah, I still do. I wish I didn't. I thought I had it licked. Epilepsy is
something nobody knows much about. It's just a part of me. Part of my head,
part of what's happening in there.


The Last American Hero by Cameron Crowe - 02/08/1979 - page 38

A lingering back ailment worsened as he continued on the tour, and after it
ended, Young suffered a slipped disk. He underwent operation and a ling
confinement on his ranch. Doctor's orders allowed him only four hours a day
on his feet.


The Most Restless Man in Rock by James Henke - 06/02/1988 - page 49

"Both of your sons have cerebral palsy. How badly handicapped are they?"
Well, Ben, who's nine, is a great little guy, a wonderful little human being.
He's got a really beautiful little face, and he's got a great heart, and he's
a lot of fun to play with. We've got a really great train set that we paly
with, a huge train set that he controls with buttons and stuff.

He's learning how to communicate and play games and solve problems using a
computer. He has severe cerebral palsy, and he's a quariplegic, and he's a
non-oral child. Cerebral palsy is a condition of life, not a disease. He was
brought into the world in this form, and this is the way he is. But his soul
is there, and I'm sure that he has an outlook on the world that we don't
because of the disabilities.

My son Zeke has very mild cerebral palsy. He's a wonderful boy, and he's
growing up to be a strong kid. He's going to be 16 in September, and he
really wants to get his driver's license. He's a great guy, a great kid, and
he's got a great heart.

"What causes cerebral palsy?"
No one knows. Just why they were born with cerebral palsy is a question that
Pegi [Young's wife] and I ask, and carie [Snodgress, Zeke's mother] and I
ask. My third child, Amber, is a little flower, growing like a little flower
should. It took Pegi a lot of preparation to get ready to have another kid
because we had to face the chance that things might not work out right.
Doctors said it had nothing to do with anything. I went and got myslef
checked because I was the father of both kids. And the doctors said, "It's a
fluke that both have cerebral palsy."

"In 1986, you put on a concert to raise money for a school for the
  handicapped."
The Bridge School. Ben goes there. Learning how to communicate, basically, is
whatthe school is all about. We spent two years in another program. It was
almost-Nazi kind of program. It kept us busy all the waking hous of the day,
seven days a week, forever. We had no time to ourselves. We couldn't leave
the house. We had to be there doing this program, and it was an
excruciatingly difficult thing for the kid. He was crying almost all day.
When we left, we went to a simpler program. We stopped concentrating on the
physical side and started trying to get the kid to communicate. It's our
life's work now.


The Godfather of Strange by Alan Light - 01/21/1993 - Page 58

Most harrowing, he has two sons, by two different women, both of whom were
born with cerebral palsy (he also has an eight-year old daughter who does not
have the condition).

He spent much of the Eighties struggling to come to terms with his sons'
disabilities, and he has said that his anger and frustration and his family
experience with various rehabilitation programs inspired the impenetrsble,
tortured work of that era. These days, though, his craggy face looks as
thoughtful and peaceful as his voice sounds on the new album. After helping
to found the Brudge School, outside of San Francisco, for physically
challenged kids like his sons, he now stages an all-star benefit each year to
raise funds. It is his involvement with his children that now seem to keep
Young happier and fresher than anything else.


Goin' Back by David Fricke - 05/22/2014 - page 66

When asked about his current state of his health, Young - who had successful
emergency surgery in 2005 for complications from a brain aneurysm - replies
right away: "How do I feel? I'm really happy to be alive. I cherish every
second. There is nothing better than life."