I was a 10 year old 4th grader getting in line to go to lunch with my class. Usually when you're that young the cool thing to do is to race everyone to the door so that you can be the first person in line, but as soon as I got out of my desk I felt like something was wrong with the way I was walking so I willingly walked to the back of the line where the handicapped/mentally challenged kids usually were. It's a sad truth, but those kids weren't treated very well by my classmates so they were surprised to see a "normal" kid willingly take the back of the line. As we walked down the hall I noticed that I was moving rather slow and I couldn't keep up with the class which at first my teacher started scolding me for, but then she rushed me to the nurse's office when I told her that I couldn't walk properly.
Being a 10 year old that never had an injury or major sickness, I didn't think anything about what was going on until I was rushed in an ambulance to a hospital. I felt totally normal aside from the fact that I was walking a little funny, so I didn't understand why everyone was so concerned. Many tests were done, questions were asked, and hospital locations were changed until I ended up in Children's Hospital. The doctor I was given thought I was putting on a show just to get out of school and wanted to send me home, but after sending a psychiatrist to evaluate me he decided to give me a spinal tap to see exactly what was wrong with me. Long story short: Guillian Barre Syndrome.
The best part about the hospital was the opportunity to make so many new friends right off the bat. I remember before I was confined to a wheelchair and I could still make my way around, I'd walk down to the game room and play Super Nintendo or Nintendo 64 with the other kids and just chat about anything in general. Since I grew up in a small town with very few friends and a rather small family, this was a dream come true in a way. Well, sort of.
My mobility quickly deteriorated to the point that I was confined to my bed. It hurt to move, it hurt to touch the bed rail, it hurt when someone touched me, it hurt to take a bath, it hurt when they took blood from me, it hurt when they forced me to do exercises that my body couldn't possibly do.. everything hurt. It especially hurt when I would try to raise my arm above me and then I'd lose strength and smack myself in the face. No more games, no more making new friends, and since I lost my sense of taste nothing tasted good either which didn't help the fact that I was taking an outrageous amount of medication daily.
As bad as the pain was, I had to make the effort at 10 years old to endure it because I missed my friends, family, and animals so badly. Unfortunately, this was only week 2 of my 4 months paralyzed. They moved me to a hospital called "Our Children's House" in Baylor and there I met some of the greatest doctors, nurses, therapists, and made some wonderful friendships. I slowly gained my arm strength back and was able to wheel myself around and play video games again, even if it was difficult to press the buttons as quick as I needed to so thank gawd Final Fantasy VI didn't require fast responses.
While I was away from my family and everybody, my new friends at the hospital quickly became my temporary family. Time passed by so slowly, so after awhile it felt like I knew these people for years after sharing all our stories and spending time together. Everything up to this point I was able to handle fairly well aside from the initial pain I went through that literally made me threaten to kill myself to get out of the pain, until I discovered the unfortunate downside to making friends in a hospital: Some of them don't make it.
Death wasn't something I was very familiar with at that point in my life, and while it hit me very hard when I lost friends to cancer, heart failure, and other issues.. with the help of the therapists and nurses there, I learned to look at death a little differently. Sometimes I'm not sure how I feel about it anymore, honestly I feel numb to it at times and other times I almost see death as a positive thing in a weird way. That or I just learned how to live with it, I really can't explain why I feel the way I do about it.
I was eager to get back to school and be with everyone again, but as I left the hospital to go home I definitely felt something tugging away at my heart. I was going to miss being there. Returning to all of my friends was so great and they were so supportive of me. Unfortunately, due to the fact that I was still in a wheelchair and didn't fully start learning to walk on my own until I had been at home for a couple days, I learned first hand how the handicapped kids felt when other kids looked down on them. Some kids didn't want to play with me, some refused to talk to me, some made fun of me.. it made no sense to me, but I accepted it until I was almost 100% and could blend in with everyone again.
Funny story: The first time I walked with no help after being paralyzed was when I woke up in the morning and had to pee really bad. I stood up and waddled my way to the bathroom and just as I walked out of the bathroom my mom freaked and asked me how I got in there. It was a very happy and silly moment.
The 2nd time I was paralyzed wasn't all that different of a story, except I was 13 years old that time around. I knew the drill. Unfortunately for some reason leaving the hospital the 2nd time was even harder, so much that I cried all the way home. It didn't help that when I got back to school in 8th grade, a friend's mom spread a rumor that what I had was contagious and that my school is risking everyone's lives by letting me back. Instead of getting that warm welcome I got back in 4th grade, I got a "Welcome back, freak. I thought you died." and I'm not even making that up. I saw the dark sides of even some of the sweetest and nicest girls I thought I knew in school. I felt alienated by the only friends I had aside from Mario, Paulino, and Bobby.
So I felt some great pain emotionally, physically, and mentally and it taught me a lot. I'm glad I experienced it, because now every time I think about that period of my life it makes me want to be one of those people employed at the hospital that helped me through it all. I feel like that's a career path that I need to seriously consider.
Anyway.. thank you for reading.
