Post by weaver2284 on Jan 11, 2018 0:26:40 GMT -5
(The following story is true, every word of it.)
On September tenth, 2000 I awoke that Sunday morning to a pain that went from my chest straight through to my back.
I let my mom know about it and she said, “Don’t worry about it.” So I didn’t worry about it, and I got some coffee, sat down in the living room and watched some Sunday morning cartoons. After about an hour the pain didn’t go away; but it was not the pain that I was worried about. It was the fact that I was having trouble breathing now. I immediately went and let my mother know what was going on. Now I was the kind of teenager that would make a mountain out of a mole hill, so she told me again to not worry. I then tried again to not worry and to believe that everything was going to be alright. But something, I don’t know what. But something told me that it was wrong.
So I went outside and sat down on the love-swing and tried to calm down. By this point I was starting to breath really fast. It was very similar to having a panic attack. Sitting down on the swing outside did not help at all. I then went back inside and complained to my mother that it was getting worse.
“Well, what do you want me to do—take you to the hospital?” she replied.
“Yes.” I said, and we got into the family van and started for the hospital. On the way there, my right leg began going numb. I started pinching my leg really hard (so hard that days later I still had massive bruising), and I couldn’t feel a thing.
My chest seized and my right arm hurt and I was having more and more trouble breathing. It was apparent to me then, I might be in some real trouble.
“Mom, my arm hurts—I can’t breathe—am I going to die!” I blurted in between sobs and gasps for air.
My mom was really calm for some reason. She might have not believed me, or even the situation at hand. For denial would be a very plausible and acceptable reaction for someone who had lost a child already and then faced with a prospect of losing a second; but for the record, I believe that she thought I was merely overreacting. I’m not saying she did anything wrong, but she couldn’t feel what I was feeling.
“No Jon—I don’t know.” She said calmly.
By the time we found a parking spot and got out of the van both of my legs were numb. This made walking a strange task. My mom signed me in and I sat down in the waiting room. I must have been panicking, because the nurses took me into an examining room and took my vital signs before other folks that were there prior to my arrival. My blood pressure was through the roof and so was my heart rate.
“You’ve got to stop breathing so fast. That’s what’s causing the numbness in your legs.” The nurse attempted to console me.
After they took my vital signs, they sent me back to the lobby. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I walked back to my seat in the waiting room, it would be the last time I would be able to walk normally ever again. It took about thirty minutes for my mom to finish the paper-work for insurance purposes. I sat about fifteen yards from where she sat filling out insurance forms. I wanted to get up and go stand beside her. I wanted to just have my hand on her shoulder. I needed comfort. When I attempted to stand… I just didn’t have it in me. Where once there was strength, there was only a Novocained weakness. I could feel that I would fall if I leaned to far forward. So I remained in my seat. After about thirty minutes went by a nurse wheeled in a wheelchair to take me to my room. I somehow managed to stand up, but when I tried to step forward to sit down, I crumbled onto the ground. Once I was there (on the ground), I couldn’t get back up again; I tried as hard as I could. I just couldn’t muster up enough strength to do it. So two male nurses had to pick me up and put me into the wheelchair.
I hadn’t a clue as to why I couldn’t move my legs all of a sudden. I didn’t know what the hell was going on! All I knew is that I couldn’t feel my legs. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t feel a damn thing from the chest down!
A nurse came into my room and told me that she needed a urine sample. She wheeled me out of the room and to a restroom. I was asked if I needed help standing up to urinate. I was too embarrassed to let some stranger watch me take a piss, so I turned her down. I managed to lock my knees and pull myself into a standing position in front of the toilet. I wasn’t able to urinate. I tried pushing as hard as I could and nothing came out.
I hit the floor of the restroom with a quick jerk that knocked the air right out of me and slammed the back of my head into the door.
“Are you alright in there?” the nurse must have heard my head knock the door.
“No, I fell down!” I replied, trying to reach the handle of the restroom door. I heard some voices behind the door and finally it opened and a large male nurse came in and picked me up and put me back into the wheelchair.
“We’re you able to get me a sample?” the female nurse asked.
“No ma’am, I couldn’t go.”
“Wha—well do you just not have to go or—” she didn’t quite understand.
“I don’t know! Just take me back to my room.” I was for a lack of a better term, pissed.
After he wheeled me back to my room, he asked if I could manage to stand up and get into the hospital bed. At the time, I thought I could just get up and into the bed, so I tried to. When I did, I almost fell into the bed itself, but luckily the nurse caught me and helped and helped me into the bed.
My mom just sat there calmly, not saying a thing. It almost appeared as if she did not care about what was happening to me. Most mothers on TV are frantic and are crying. Telling there lamed child that everything will be okay. But this wasn’t the case. My mother just sat there calmly, not saying a word.
“Mom, what’s happening to me?” I asked frantically.
“I don’t know. Just wait for the doctor.” She told me.
“Why aren’t you scared? What in the HELL is going on? Why aren’t YOU SCARED?!” I screamed.
Startled by my sudden outburst, “I don’t know Jon!”
“You don’t believe me—you think I’m faking it! Don’t you!”
“No—I don’t know Jon! I don’t know if you are faking it and now that it’s gone too far, you don’t want to admit it now… I don’t know what to think!” She screamed back desperately.
“Oh—my—GOD! What in the hell do you think I’m doing here, putting on a show!? I don’t think so. That’s not me! I wouldn’t do something like that! I can’t believe that you don’t believe me mom!” I was scared, exhausted, and tired of people not believing in me. “Mom, come on. You have got to believe me. I can’t move my legs, I can’t WALK! I am NOT FAKING IT!”
“—Alright, Jon! All I said is that I don’t know. I never said that I didn’t believe you! Just wait for the doctor.”
For the next couple of hours I screamed and moaned and tried to move my legs. I just couldn’t do it. Then the doctor entered the room. He was an older African-American man with a little gray in his beard and in his hair.
“Well what seems to be the problem?” he said robotically as he “read” my chart. “Uhm… this is strange. Well let me run a few tests to see if I can’t figure this out.” The doctor then asked me the same damn questions that five other nurses had asked me previously. He then had me close my eyes and tell him where on my legs he was touching. Now my body, from the chest down was numb. It was similar to the kind of numbness felt when administered a Novocain shot. So I could still feel any physical pressure that was put on my legs.
“Alright, how about now?” he asked touching my left big-toe.
I answered, “My left foot, on the toe.”
This went on for a couple of minutes, and he then asked for me to slide up to the edge of the hospital bed. “Now, what I want for you to do for me Jonathon, is to try and stand up in front of me, here on the floor.”
“Sir, I can’t do that I’ll fall down.” I pleaded.
“Now listen here son, your legs are just fine. Now stand up!” He demanded.
For some reason, I didn’t challenge him a second time. I believe I just decided to let myself hit the floor, for this jerk-off to see for his self. Not only did my mom not believe me, but this doctor seemed to not believe me either. I pulled myself to the edge. Took in a deep breath, put my legs down, and my feet upon the floor. I noticed that the floor wasn’t cold or warm. It was just numb pressure on the bottoms of my feet. When I tried to put weight on my legs; I could feel the limp dead-weight of them on the floor, and a huge lack of my physical strength. I crumbled to the floor. The doctor left the room and returned with two male nurses. They picked me up and put me back onto the bed.
The doctor picked up my chart again. This time putting his glasses on, and reading it with scrutiny, “Well, I see that you didn’t give us a urine sample.” He looked at me with a skeptical grin, “now why was that?”
“I told you because I can’t.”
“You can’t what.” He said impatiently.
“I can’t pee, damn it! That’s why!” I raised my voice and glared at him with tears beading in my eyes, my nose stinging from me holding them back.
The ol’ doc’ wasn’t buying it. “Now listen here young man, you can’t leave here until we get what we want. If you do not give us a urine sample, we will be forced to perform an unnecessary procedure on you, and I don’t think that you want that, now do you?!” He left the room huffing and puffing.
I was caught off guard. Not sure of what he was referring to, “what unnecessary procedure is he talking about?”
She replied, “They’re talking about catheterizing you Jon.”
“What’s that?” I was sorry that I asked.
“It’s when they put a tube up inside your penis to drain your bladder.” She told me, exhausted at how this situation kept on getting worse and worse; beginning to see that I wasn’t overreacting.
The doctor came into the room after an hour, with a mock smile on his face, “well, let’s see if we can’t try this again.” He rigidly walked up to the edge of my bed, “now, you say that you can’t move your legs, and that they are numb as well?” He knelt down and touched my foot. “Now can you feel this—close your eyes!”
I knew he was going to do that stupid touch test again, and I saw what it was leading to as he asked me, “where am I touching now?”
“My knee—“
“Which one?” he uttered.
“My left knee.” I said apathetically.
I opened my eyes to see the ol’ doc’ still wasn’t buying it. He looked at me suspiciously for a moment, stood back up and said, “Scoot up to the edge of the bed again.”
“Sir I cannot—“
“Just try son. That’s all I’m asking” he pretended to be sympathetic.
“But if I—” I was interrupted.
“Jon, just try again.” my mom said.
I knew that I couldn’t stand up. I knew that when I tried I would hit the ground, just like from before. But for some reason, that day it seemed that people were having a real hard time believing in what it was that I had to say. So I pulled myself up to the edge. (Mind you these hospital beds were about three and half feet off of the ground) I took another deep breath. Put my legs down and my feet on the floor. The floor still felt only of numb pressure on the bottoms’ of my feet; neither warm nor cold. This time I tried to get some inertia built up, and I heaved myself off the edge. When I hit the floor this time, the air was knocked right out of me, and my forehead bounced off the tile.
“Hey we need y’all in here again! He fell down.” The doctor called to the nurses standing outside. They came into the room to pick me up and they almost appeared to be ashamed of the fact that they were having to do this again. The doctor continued to look at me with disbelief. So he re-ran the same battery of tests yet again. “Here…” he handed me a small container, “since you can’t “walk” to go to the bathroom, and I still need a urine sample from you; you will have to use this.”
“Sir, I already told you, I can’t pee.” I said, knowing that any effort on my part was futile.
The ol’ doc’ was “fed up”. “Now that is just bologna! You know we need a urine sample, and once again you’re not leaving until I get one! And if you don’t go in that, then I will have you catheterized. And you don’t want that!” He stormed out of the room.
My mother sat there saying nothing; either trying to make sense of the situation at hand or even trying to think of something helpful to say. I asked her to leave the room so I could try and urinate into the container given to me by the doctor. I pushed as hard as I could and nothing would come out. By this time we had been in the ER for about four hours, and I could feel that my bladder was full, really full. And something told me that this was going to get a lot worse, before it was going to improve at all.
“Knock-knock, Jon were you able to go?” my mother asked walking on eggshells.
“No, I can’t do it.” I replied.
“You couldn’t go at all? Jon… why don’t you just go, if you smoked some weed and you don’t want admit it, then it’s alright with me, but that’s what the doctor thinks. Just let’s get this over with.” She was pleading with me.
“Mom… I told you that I can’t do it.”
After an hour and a half, I managed to squeeze out a couple of drops into the container. I called in my mom, to alert the doctor that I had finally managed a urine sample for him. When he entered the room I was surprised at his reaction,
“uhm—I think this will do. I will be right back.” Holding up the sample to the light, he left the room.
My mother and I waited for about an hour before the doctor came back with the urinalysis. He knocked and enter the room with his head down, “well, the tests came back and his urine is clean… now scoot up to the edge of the bed again here. We’re gonna give standing one more try.” This time his smile was more sincere, but still this “man” was actually going to try and get me to stand again. And although I was right and the ol’ doc’ was wrong… for some reason, I allowed it to go on.
“Look man, all that’s gonna happen is that I’m just gonna fall on the damn floor again, but whatever.”
I started to say, but ended up speaking under my breath. I once again pulled myself to the edge; and this time it wasn’t only the edge of the bed I pulled myself towards, it was the also the edge of my patients. As I took a hollow breath inwards, I kept my eyes trained on the eyes of the doctor. Surprisingly, maintained my gaze and amidst our starring contest I put my legs down, my feet upon the floor, and fell onto the ground once more. The bastard started to call for the nurses but I stopped him.
“NO! Just fuck it! I don’t want your stinkin’ help, just fuck it!” I pulled myself around by grabbing one of the wheels of the hospital bed. I then proceeded with using only my arms, to climbing up the side of my personal mole hill. “You see! You motherfucker!” I continued to curse at this sorry excuse of a “doctor” as I climbed up the side of the three-foot tall mountain that was that fucking hospital bed. Once I had positioned myself on the bed again, I looked and this asshole was frozen. A deer in the headlights of a pissed off, paralyzed, fifteen year-old boy; then I prompted that he “get the hell out of my room!” To which he promptly left.
By this time mother would have cursed this man out just the same but I guess I beat her to the chase and she just let me go. She later told me that she could tell that I needed to be allowed to speak my mind in that situation. We waited for another hour and when a second doctor came in to see me, he began to pull down the sheets when he noticed that I had urinated on myself and the bed.
He asked, “Did you know that you had wet the bed?”
I calmly said, “No sir.”
At that point he had a nurse come in to catheterize me, so my bladder didn’t burst. He didn’t bother running the tests that the former doc’ had seen necessary to run. He simply had me sent to Egleston Children’s Hospital, where I had to have a spinal tap. Even though I couldn’t feel much of anything from the chest down, that was by far one of the most painful things I have experienced. They ran one test on my spinal fluid and found that I had contracted Transverse Myelitis; a virus that caused my white-blood cells to attack my spinal cord where I had a pinched nerve. I was paralyzed at the section of the spine called T3. This is from the chest down. I was in a wheelchair for three months before I was up using crutches. My left leg is still weak and I am not able to run, ride a bike, or any other strenuous activity using my lower body. Only one out of a million people get what I got, and even then it usually only affects infants or the elderly. I am a very fortunate individual, most people die from Transverse Myelitis and I made it through. For that I find a reason to be thankful everyday… even if I don’t admit it sometimes. I am thankful, and I feel truly blessed every day
On September tenth, 2000 I awoke that Sunday morning to a pain that went from my chest straight through to my back.
I let my mom know about it and she said, “Don’t worry about it.” So I didn’t worry about it, and I got some coffee, sat down in the living room and watched some Sunday morning cartoons. After about an hour the pain didn’t go away; but it was not the pain that I was worried about. It was the fact that I was having trouble breathing now. I immediately went and let my mother know what was going on. Now I was the kind of teenager that would make a mountain out of a mole hill, so she told me again to not worry. I then tried again to not worry and to believe that everything was going to be alright. But something, I don’t know what. But something told me that it was wrong.
So I went outside and sat down on the love-swing and tried to calm down. By this point I was starting to breath really fast. It was very similar to having a panic attack. Sitting down on the swing outside did not help at all. I then went back inside and complained to my mother that it was getting worse.
“Well, what do you want me to do—take you to the hospital?” she replied.
“Yes.” I said, and we got into the family van and started for the hospital. On the way there, my right leg began going numb. I started pinching my leg really hard (so hard that days later I still had massive bruising), and I couldn’t feel a thing.
My chest seized and my right arm hurt and I was having more and more trouble breathing. It was apparent to me then, I might be in some real trouble.
“Mom, my arm hurts—I can’t breathe—am I going to die!” I blurted in between sobs and gasps for air.
My mom was really calm for some reason. She might have not believed me, or even the situation at hand. For denial would be a very plausible and acceptable reaction for someone who had lost a child already and then faced with a prospect of losing a second; but for the record, I believe that she thought I was merely overreacting. I’m not saying she did anything wrong, but she couldn’t feel what I was feeling.
“No Jon—I don’t know.” She said calmly.
By the time we found a parking spot and got out of the van both of my legs were numb. This made walking a strange task. My mom signed me in and I sat down in the waiting room. I must have been panicking, because the nurses took me into an examining room and took my vital signs before other folks that were there prior to my arrival. My blood pressure was through the roof and so was my heart rate.
“You’ve got to stop breathing so fast. That’s what’s causing the numbness in your legs.” The nurse attempted to console me.
After they took my vital signs, they sent me back to the lobby. I didn’t know it at the time, but as I walked back to my seat in the waiting room, it would be the last time I would be able to walk normally ever again. It took about thirty minutes for my mom to finish the paper-work for insurance purposes. I sat about fifteen yards from where she sat filling out insurance forms. I wanted to get up and go stand beside her. I wanted to just have my hand on her shoulder. I needed comfort. When I attempted to stand… I just didn’t have it in me. Where once there was strength, there was only a Novocained weakness. I could feel that I would fall if I leaned to far forward. So I remained in my seat. After about thirty minutes went by a nurse wheeled in a wheelchair to take me to my room. I somehow managed to stand up, but when I tried to step forward to sit down, I crumbled onto the ground. Once I was there (on the ground), I couldn’t get back up again; I tried as hard as I could. I just couldn’t muster up enough strength to do it. So two male nurses had to pick me up and put me into the wheelchair.
I hadn’t a clue as to why I couldn’t move my legs all of a sudden. I didn’t know what the hell was going on! All I knew is that I couldn’t feel my legs. As a matter of fact, I couldn’t feel a damn thing from the chest down!
A nurse came into my room and told me that she needed a urine sample. She wheeled me out of the room and to a restroom. I was asked if I needed help standing up to urinate. I was too embarrassed to let some stranger watch me take a piss, so I turned her down. I managed to lock my knees and pull myself into a standing position in front of the toilet. I wasn’t able to urinate. I tried pushing as hard as I could and nothing came out.
I hit the floor of the restroom with a quick jerk that knocked the air right out of me and slammed the back of my head into the door.
“Are you alright in there?” the nurse must have heard my head knock the door.
“No, I fell down!” I replied, trying to reach the handle of the restroom door. I heard some voices behind the door and finally it opened and a large male nurse came in and picked me up and put me back into the wheelchair.
“We’re you able to get me a sample?” the female nurse asked.
“No ma’am, I couldn’t go.”
“Wha—well do you just not have to go or—” she didn’t quite understand.
“I don’t know! Just take me back to my room.” I was for a lack of a better term, pissed.
After he wheeled me back to my room, he asked if I could manage to stand up and get into the hospital bed. At the time, I thought I could just get up and into the bed, so I tried to. When I did, I almost fell into the bed itself, but luckily the nurse caught me and helped and helped me into the bed.
My mom just sat there calmly, not saying a thing. It almost appeared as if she did not care about what was happening to me. Most mothers on TV are frantic and are crying. Telling there lamed child that everything will be okay. But this wasn’t the case. My mother just sat there calmly, not saying a word.
“Mom, what’s happening to me?” I asked frantically.
“I don’t know. Just wait for the doctor.” She told me.
“Why aren’t you scared? What in the HELL is going on? Why aren’t YOU SCARED?!” I screamed.
Startled by my sudden outburst, “I don’t know Jon!”
“You don’t believe me—you think I’m faking it! Don’t you!”
“No—I don’t know Jon! I don’t know if you are faking it and now that it’s gone too far, you don’t want to admit it now… I don’t know what to think!” She screamed back desperately.
“Oh—my—GOD! What in the hell do you think I’m doing here, putting on a show!? I don’t think so. That’s not me! I wouldn’t do something like that! I can’t believe that you don’t believe me mom!” I was scared, exhausted, and tired of people not believing in me. “Mom, come on. You have got to believe me. I can’t move my legs, I can’t WALK! I am NOT FAKING IT!”
“—Alright, Jon! All I said is that I don’t know. I never said that I didn’t believe you! Just wait for the doctor.”
For the next couple of hours I screamed and moaned and tried to move my legs. I just couldn’t do it. Then the doctor entered the room. He was an older African-American man with a little gray in his beard and in his hair.
“Well what seems to be the problem?” he said robotically as he “read” my chart. “Uhm… this is strange. Well let me run a few tests to see if I can’t figure this out.” The doctor then asked me the same damn questions that five other nurses had asked me previously. He then had me close my eyes and tell him where on my legs he was touching. Now my body, from the chest down was numb. It was similar to the kind of numbness felt when administered a Novocain shot. So I could still feel any physical pressure that was put on my legs.
“Alright, how about now?” he asked touching my left big-toe.
I answered, “My left foot, on the toe.”
This went on for a couple of minutes, and he then asked for me to slide up to the edge of the hospital bed. “Now, what I want for you to do for me Jonathon, is to try and stand up in front of me, here on the floor.”
“Sir, I can’t do that I’ll fall down.” I pleaded.
“Now listen here son, your legs are just fine. Now stand up!” He demanded.
For some reason, I didn’t challenge him a second time. I believe I just decided to let myself hit the floor, for this jerk-off to see for his self. Not only did my mom not believe me, but this doctor seemed to not believe me either. I pulled myself to the edge. Took in a deep breath, put my legs down, and my feet upon the floor. I noticed that the floor wasn’t cold or warm. It was just numb pressure on the bottoms of my feet. When I tried to put weight on my legs; I could feel the limp dead-weight of them on the floor, and a huge lack of my physical strength. I crumbled to the floor. The doctor left the room and returned with two male nurses. They picked me up and put me back onto the bed.
The doctor picked up my chart again. This time putting his glasses on, and reading it with scrutiny, “Well, I see that you didn’t give us a urine sample.” He looked at me with a skeptical grin, “now why was that?”
“I told you because I can’t.”
“You can’t what.” He said impatiently.
“I can’t pee, damn it! That’s why!” I raised my voice and glared at him with tears beading in my eyes, my nose stinging from me holding them back.
The ol’ doc’ wasn’t buying it. “Now listen here young man, you can’t leave here until we get what we want. If you do not give us a urine sample, we will be forced to perform an unnecessary procedure on you, and I don’t think that you want that, now do you?!” He left the room huffing and puffing.
I was caught off guard. Not sure of what he was referring to, “what unnecessary procedure is he talking about?”
She replied, “They’re talking about catheterizing you Jon.”
“What’s that?” I was sorry that I asked.
“It’s when they put a tube up inside your penis to drain your bladder.” She told me, exhausted at how this situation kept on getting worse and worse; beginning to see that I wasn’t overreacting.
The doctor came into the room after an hour, with a mock smile on his face, “well, let’s see if we can’t try this again.” He rigidly walked up to the edge of my bed, “now, you say that you can’t move your legs, and that they are numb as well?” He knelt down and touched my foot. “Now can you feel this—close your eyes!”
I knew he was going to do that stupid touch test again, and I saw what it was leading to as he asked me, “where am I touching now?”
“My knee—“
“Which one?” he uttered.
“My left knee.” I said apathetically.
I opened my eyes to see the ol’ doc’ still wasn’t buying it. He looked at me suspiciously for a moment, stood back up and said, “Scoot up to the edge of the bed again.”
“Sir I cannot—“
“Just try son. That’s all I’m asking” he pretended to be sympathetic.
“But if I—” I was interrupted.
“Jon, just try again.” my mom said.
I knew that I couldn’t stand up. I knew that when I tried I would hit the ground, just like from before. But for some reason, that day it seemed that people were having a real hard time believing in what it was that I had to say. So I pulled myself up to the edge. (Mind you these hospital beds were about three and half feet off of the ground) I took another deep breath. Put my legs down and my feet on the floor. The floor still felt only of numb pressure on the bottoms’ of my feet; neither warm nor cold. This time I tried to get some inertia built up, and I heaved myself off the edge. When I hit the floor this time, the air was knocked right out of me, and my forehead bounced off the tile.
“Hey we need y’all in here again! He fell down.” The doctor called to the nurses standing outside. They came into the room to pick me up and they almost appeared to be ashamed of the fact that they were having to do this again. The doctor continued to look at me with disbelief. So he re-ran the same battery of tests yet again. “Here…” he handed me a small container, “since you can’t “walk” to go to the bathroom, and I still need a urine sample from you; you will have to use this.”
“Sir, I already told you, I can’t pee.” I said, knowing that any effort on my part was futile.
The ol’ doc’ was “fed up”. “Now that is just bologna! You know we need a urine sample, and once again you’re not leaving until I get one! And if you don’t go in that, then I will have you catheterized. And you don’t want that!” He stormed out of the room.
My mother sat there saying nothing; either trying to make sense of the situation at hand or even trying to think of something helpful to say. I asked her to leave the room so I could try and urinate into the container given to me by the doctor. I pushed as hard as I could and nothing would come out. By this time we had been in the ER for about four hours, and I could feel that my bladder was full, really full. And something told me that this was going to get a lot worse, before it was going to improve at all.
“Knock-knock, Jon were you able to go?” my mother asked walking on eggshells.
“No, I can’t do it.” I replied.
“You couldn’t go at all? Jon… why don’t you just go, if you smoked some weed and you don’t want admit it, then it’s alright with me, but that’s what the doctor thinks. Just let’s get this over with.” She was pleading with me.
“Mom… I told you that I can’t do it.”
After an hour and a half, I managed to squeeze out a couple of drops into the container. I called in my mom, to alert the doctor that I had finally managed a urine sample for him. When he entered the room I was surprised at his reaction,
“uhm—I think this will do. I will be right back.” Holding up the sample to the light, he left the room.
My mother and I waited for about an hour before the doctor came back with the urinalysis. He knocked and enter the room with his head down, “well, the tests came back and his urine is clean… now scoot up to the edge of the bed again here. We’re gonna give standing one more try.” This time his smile was more sincere, but still this “man” was actually going to try and get me to stand again. And although I was right and the ol’ doc’ was wrong… for some reason, I allowed it to go on.
“Look man, all that’s gonna happen is that I’m just gonna fall on the damn floor again, but whatever.”
I started to say, but ended up speaking under my breath. I once again pulled myself to the edge; and this time it wasn’t only the edge of the bed I pulled myself towards, it was the also the edge of my patients. As I took a hollow breath inwards, I kept my eyes trained on the eyes of the doctor. Surprisingly, maintained my gaze and amidst our starring contest I put my legs down, my feet upon the floor, and fell onto the ground once more. The bastard started to call for the nurses but I stopped him.
“NO! Just fuck it! I don’t want your stinkin’ help, just fuck it!” I pulled myself around by grabbing one of the wheels of the hospital bed. I then proceeded with using only my arms, to climbing up the side of my personal mole hill. “You see! You motherfucker!” I continued to curse at this sorry excuse of a “doctor” as I climbed up the side of the three-foot tall mountain that was that fucking hospital bed. Once I had positioned myself on the bed again, I looked and this asshole was frozen. A deer in the headlights of a pissed off, paralyzed, fifteen year-old boy; then I prompted that he “get the hell out of my room!” To which he promptly left.
By this time mother would have cursed this man out just the same but I guess I beat her to the chase and she just let me go. She later told me that she could tell that I needed to be allowed to speak my mind in that situation. We waited for another hour and when a second doctor came in to see me, he began to pull down the sheets when he noticed that I had urinated on myself and the bed.
He asked, “Did you know that you had wet the bed?”
I calmly said, “No sir.”
At that point he had a nurse come in to catheterize me, so my bladder didn’t burst. He didn’t bother running the tests that the former doc’ had seen necessary to run. He simply had me sent to Egleston Children’s Hospital, where I had to have a spinal tap. Even though I couldn’t feel much of anything from the chest down, that was by far one of the most painful things I have experienced. They ran one test on my spinal fluid and found that I had contracted Transverse Myelitis; a virus that caused my white-blood cells to attack my spinal cord where I had a pinched nerve. I was paralyzed at the section of the spine called T3. This is from the chest down. I was in a wheelchair for three months before I was up using crutches. My left leg is still weak and I am not able to run, ride a bike, or any other strenuous activity using my lower body. Only one out of a million people get what I got, and even then it usually only affects infants or the elderly. I am a very fortunate individual, most people die from Transverse Myelitis and I made it through. For that I find a reason to be thankful everyday… even if I don’t admit it sometimes. I am thankful, and I feel truly blessed every day
