Sitting in the Memorial Union, Bryan Hooyman finishes his sandwich from Subway as his mother walks up with two Nut Rolls.

“I love Nut Rolls,” he says.

Hooyman launches into a story about how his father is a radiologist, and the radiology technicians who worked with his father used to stop by Bryan’s hospital room and give him Nut Rolls. He had boxes of them, he said.

He speaks quickly with a slight lisp, and his mother, Deb, smiles at her son, who wears tinted glasses because he still has double vision and sensitivity to light.

“At the time, he only had a 30 percent chance [of returning to normal],” she said.

Bryan jokes with his mother about the effects of his near-fatal accident last November. On Nov. 5, Bryan was driving on Iowa Highway 14 north of Marshalltown when another car ran a stop sign and slammed into him. Bryan was in a coma for two weeks and spent time in two different hospitals. He was released on Feb. 14 and is now in outpatient therapy.

“He walks a little bit slower now,” Deb said. “He runs. His thinking process is fine, [but] his memory is a little bit spotty around the accident.”

She said the doctors didn’t expect his short-term memory to be as good as it is now.

Bryan smiles as he looks at her.

“What?” he asks.

“His humor is intact,” she said.

“What did I eat again?” Bryan asks as he breaks into laughter.

Today is an exciting day for Bryan. Today he is going somewhere he has wanted to visit for a long time — Roberts Hall’s Fairchild house, where he lived as an ISU student studying pre-journalism and mass communication before his accident.

As the Hooymans’ van drives down the twisted streets near Richardson Court Association, Bryan looks around.

“Whenever I come down this road, I feel like I’m going to school for the first time,” he said.

Bryan slowly walks up the three flights to Fairchild and turns to his old room. His old roommate is not there, and there are someone else’s things in Bryan’s place.

“November 4 was the last time I was in my room,” he said.

He said everything looks the same to him, except his bed had Minnesota Vikings sheets on it.

Bryan walks down the hall to see who has not gone home for the Easter weekend. He knocks on Room 3207.

Philip Wnek, freshman in exercise and sport science, answers the door and quickly moves things so Bryan can sit down.

Their conversation is not different from any other conversation on a dreary Saturday.

“How big is Waterloo?” Philip asks.

“It’s not as big as Des Moines, but it’s close,” Bryan said.

Bryan points out that Wnek is from Chicago and is therefore a Bears fan. Bryan is a Vikings fan.

“We used to yell across the hall during Sundays,” Philip said.

Philip and Bryan talk about sports and basketball games they played last fall in the Birch-Welch-Roberts Challenge and home.

Bryan continues walking down the hall and talking to his old neighbors, who readily welcome him in. Detailed conversation about Bryan’s accident is avoided, until Bryan shows an old friend the piece of glass that is still embedded in his forehead. He urges them to touch it.

He jokes about how he is going to have it removed, then make it into a necklace. Bryan said he does not believe he is a miracle — he just likes proving doctors wrong.