I don’t think there is enough room in this blockchain for me to thank all the people I need to thank, but I especially want to thank my loving, caring and angelic wife without whom I would have had a much more difficult time making it through this experience. My entire family for standing by me, praying for me and making the two hour drive regularly to visit me, the caring skilled hands of the doctors and nurses that cared for me, all the people around the world that have been praying for me, my mom and John for their never-ending support, my father for making the 20 hour expedition from Caribou, ME, Joyce for staying with my family through these troubling times, my brother Tobey, of course, for his strength and continued attempts at snapping me out of my coma and the use of his laptop, all the people around the world that have been praying for me and donated money, food, meals, prayers and time to my family, all the people that have sent cards and continue to do so… the list of people who were there for me and my family could go on for days.
As I begin writing to you from this hospital bed with what is left of my jaw wired shut, most of my bottom jaw missing and hardly able to utter a sound, I can reflect on my situation and know there is a plan and purpose for this. I know where the healing is coming from and why. I can think off the top of my head of several reasons for all of this. My life has been a lesson in faith. I have had some amazing times along with severely tragic times that cannot be explained.
My wife has become unimaginably stronger as a person through all of this. Not that she needed the stress. She has also shined as a beacon of love and compassion to many in our lives. My faith and rapid healing have also touched many people around me including myself.
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I have been humbled as a person knowing that I will never look the same nor be able to do many of the things I’ve always taken for granted. I also realize there is no way I could continue through life not appreciating all that I had, and that there is another direction for me. I don’t know yet, but we will soon find out. This slowed me down and shut me up long enough to realize there is something better for me to do in life.
I lay myself out bare to you without pride or arrogance and have written this with no secrets in mind. It is the truth and fact cover to cover. No exaggerations, embellishments or white lies. Some of it will be hard to believe but you have to remember that with all the seemingly good and extraordinary experiences I’ve also had a lot of bad occur in my life.
I’ve included pictures in this story to cure any skeptics. Please note the graphic nature of some of the photos and allow them to be shown accordingly.
A nurse in ICU reminded me what Albert Einstein said: “Live as if everything is a miracle or nothing is.”
I didn’t realize pride of life had taken over. I had the sports car, a nice house, a beautiful wife and three great children. I had life where I wanted it, a few bucks in the bank and good friends. I guess you could say I had it made. I spent most of my time at home due to a disability and managed to spend tons of time with my wife and children. I love hearing them laugh and play. We had our holiday plans made to go up north to visit family and had already made most of the arrangements. We were going to drive from Florida to visit family in New England and along the way stop and visit close friends in Kentucky. My beautiful wife had already let our family know that we were going to be there for Christmas. I have three young children and they were extremely exited about going on their first family vacation and especially the prospect of seeing snow for the first time in their
lives. My only problem was pride. I guess you can say; I thought I was invincible. Two days after Thanksgiving on November 26, 2005 I was at a friend’s house consoling him over his divorce and spent the afternoon hanging out, munching on some halibut that he caught in Alaska.
My wife called at 6pm and reminded me that I had a date with her that night and to get home. She asked me to stop on the way and get something for the children to eat. I hung up the phone and ended up in another long conversation with my friend. She called me again at 8pm a little upset. Her and the children hadn’t eaten yet and were waiting for me to get there, so I said bye to my friend and headed home. I was a mile away from his home on a nice winding road, really enjoying my convertible top being down and the sound of my engine in the cool, beautiful Florida evening. I think it is a safe estimate that Iwas doing between 45 and 50mph when I rounded the bend. The road conditions were dry, clear and my car usually handled very well. The next thing I knew I heard someone yell and I ducked and jerked the wheel to the left. In an instant the back end of my car slid-out and the car headed straight into the ditch on the left side of the road. I hit the brakes but it was too late...
I was instantly bounced out of my seat; my face was being smashed into the top bar of the convertible windshield. My seat belt was on, but it released all of its slack. I remember the weightless feeling similar to the negative g’s that you feel when you ride a roller coaster. My left leg got thrown through the windshield and I felt it crush and crackle,but my face had taken the brunt of the force.At the same time my left side was dragged across the sea grass as the car went up on it's left side and I remember the feeling as if I was out of the car my arm in a raised position sliding across the grass on my side. My car ended up coming to an instant dead stop then cartwheel from 45-50 miles per hour against the backside of a dirt embankment. The car hit with so much violence that the rear end spun around going airborne in an instant, flew around to the point where the car faced the direction I was coming from. The car landed 25 feet away from the impact site, tilted on the driver’s side door. It then fell back on its wheels with a final bang with me bouncing back into the seat still buckled in. The car landed in a manner that positioned it completely hidden between the embankment and sidewalk aimed in the opposite direction from which I was headed almost completely out of sight of the road in front of a stilted house 200 yards from any other house. The only thing I knew was that I had to get help and get it fast or I would bleed out.
I looked around me and could see that the closest lights were on my right and belonged to the house that I crashed in front of. For some reason the thought of laying on the horn never crossed my mind. I just felt the pain, the blood and pieces of teeth and bone pouring out of my face. My left leg felt like it was shredded to pieces but I had to get help. I unbuckled the seat belt struggled to open the door and tried standing on my feet getting out of the car. I fell to the ground in excruciating bone crushing pain that to this day I cannot begin to describe. I dragged myself through the mud between the car and the embankment then onto the cement driveway. I can remember the abrasiveness and grit of the driveway as it rubbed against my skin and recall wishing that it didn’t feel so rough. But I had to get to the stairs of that house and to the door or I knew I would die. The photos of the accident scene show where my car was situated. Not a soul driving by the scene could have possibly seen either me or my car. If someone driving by happened to see my car it would have appeared as if it was just parked there and they would have just kept driving. The car was perpendicular to the driveway with the rear bumper almost perfectly positioned to allow vehicles access.
In a video interview, my cousin, my wife and myself conducted with the home-owner a few days after I left the hospital she told us that not only are her and her husband never home on Saturday nights, but that in previous years she had a difficult, if not impossible time, getting her husband to put up Christmas lights right up until Christmas Eve. He hated putting those lights up. It just so happened earlier that evening he suggested rather than going out with friends they should stay home and put the lights up together. Had they gone out that night as usual they would have came home later that evening only to find me dead on their driveway in a pool of blood.
God Had Other Plans....
The homeowners saw my accident and called 911. I remember looking up and seeing a woman coming down the stairs,hearing her cry out to whoever was in the house on the phone “tell them to hurry up it’s life threatening.” A few moments later she was standing by my side telling me to be still, help is on the way. I had dragged myself almost 30 feet up her driveway in my quest to reach her door. The first responder to arrive on the scene was a man who I found out after I left the hospital was a Pinellas County deputy who spoke to me a little and told me to remain calm. The weirdest thing is the fact that for some reason I had no major fear of death. I didn’t care what this deputy and the homeowners had to say; I just couldn’t get out of my mind that my face was destroyed, I couldn’t walk and believed that I had lost my left leg from the knee down, and I was thinking to myself and I believe I stated that “my wife is going to be really upset with me for wrecking the car and getting myself hurt.” I was thinking and attempting to say “no, this isn’t happening, no, no, no please God.” Please let this not be real. I don’t want to be hurt.” The ambulance got there within a few minutes. I lay in their driveway moaning in agony, trying to put my face back together and but the bones back that were falling out. I could feel that my upper jaw was ripped in half and my nose was hanging off my face.My hands were completely covered in blood and mud. I will never forget nor could I ever imitate the awful guttural, gurgled moaning sounds was making while trying to piece my face back together. When the ambulance got there they worked quickly to get me stable and keep me conscious. I was able to talk by holding my jaw and face together and responded by telling the ambulance tech that I had 0-blood; he said that I was bleeding too much from my throat to get a good airway and told me he may have to do a tracheotomy. I told him “Do whatever you need to do, just keep me alive till we get to the hospital because I have a wife and 3 beautiful babies at home that need me”. He asked me what hospital I wanted and I told him to Bay-Flight me. He said I’m in luck because the helicopter was in the area and they would take me to the middle school down the street to meet the chopper The technician continued attempting to roll me over onto my back so he could secure me to the back-board but every time he tried to do so my airway would fill with blood and I couldn’t breathe so I would fight my way back onto my side and consciousness. As a result, the techs wrote in their report that I was combative. I wasn’t combative; I’m just addicted to breathing and didn’t want to drown in my own blood. A few minutes later I was loaded on the helicopter and I remember saying in my mind “thank you lord” I closed what was left of my eyelids and despite the noise from the chopper began to fall asleep. During that flight I died at least for a few moments and recall an entire dream of being in a flood hanging off the side of a tall building. Looking down, I recall a rushing large black river below me with people screaming and I recall reaching up to the helicopter as the people reached out and pulled me onboard. I vaguely remember landing on the roof of the hospital and being wheeled out of the chopper. There was a lot of activity and I finally allowed myself to fall asleep.
I woke up six weeks later.!
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Chapter 2
My little hospital visit
From what I’m told for the next six weeks, I was between a coma and drug induced trance in the intensive care unit at Bay-Front Medical Center. After I was transferred to the chopper on the night of the accident November 26, 2005 until January 1, 2006 I only have vague, strange hallucinogenic memories. One of which my wife was standing there teary eyed as a woman whom I believe was a nurse kept asking me “Mr. Main, Do you know where you are? Mr. Main you were in a terrible car accident. Move your finger if you can hear me” She then told my wife: “I don’t think he is going to make it and if he does I don’t know what he’ll be like mentally”. The memory of the despondent look on my dear wife’s face will be with me for life. I remember screaming out that I was ok. Apparently I didn’t make a sound because they didn’t hear me. I heard my wife moan and watched her helplessly as she walked away.
Due to a crushed airway the doctors say I flat lined at least 6 or 7 times over the course of the next 30 days and was revived by the skilled staff at Bay-front Medical Center ICU. By the grace of God I am here to share a small part of my life with you.
I have since spoken with several doctors involved with my care and I have come to realize the scope of my injuries. The doctors told me that my body tried very hard to die on them. The fact is; my face was ripped in half and crushed starting below the lower jaw at the neck and airway up to my eyes. My Airway was damaged so severely that every time I attempted to take a breath it collapsed. My face looked as if someone took an axe and smashed it down the middle from my jaw up.
As a result of my injuries I was suffering from a condition called trachealmalacia. If I survived at all, the doctors and the medical staff concurred that I would spend the rest of my life on oxygen and a ventilator and were mentally preparing my wife for my life hooked to a ventilator.
According to all of the medical books there is no cure for adult trachealmalacia as severe as mine because cartilage doesn’t heal. They we preparing to ship me to Boston to keep me alive on a machine long enough to get a surgery that may have held my airway open to keep me alive.
My next actual memory after getting on the helicopter was my brother’s voice trying to talk me out of my coma. One week later January 1st 2006. I woke up. When I came out of the coma my arms were strapped to the bed. Apparently while I was in the coma I pulled several breathing tubes out of my neck and I ended up flat lining so the staff had to restrain my hands and feet.
My wife came in during one of these episodes and saw me laying on my bed, my body blue from lack of oxygen and several of the nurses working very hard to revive me. That scene of me dying and many others she witnessed during my stay haunt her memory to this day.
I was finally somewhat awake and coherent. The first thing that happened was my mind began replaying the accident. I couldn’t move my neck due to it being in a brace as a result of that brace I couldn’t look down at the rest of my body. So, judging from the pain and lack of motion in my leg I thought I lost it from the knee down.
I could not get the crushing pain, sights or sounds of that night out of my head. I remembered very little from that evening up until I began driving but the memories from the accident itself and the half hour or so until I was loaded onto the chopper is unbelievably vivid. I wish to this day that I could make the memories go away.
The thought in my mind repeated over and over: “what are my three young children who mean the world to me going think, when they see daddy now.” I missed Christmas and had not seen my babies’ smiles in over a month. I hope and pray they don’t forget me and forgive me for missing Christmas. I couldn’t grasp the idea that my entire future would be different. I thought a full recovery would happen right away but my doctors immediately began letting me down lightly by telling me that I will be in the hospital for at least the next year being put back together and rehabilitated. I guess they didn’t know me at all.
My wife was invaluable in keeping the face of my children in front of me. While in the coma she kept pictures of my babies up on the glass wall next to my bed. After I awoke from the coma, when the nurses rolled me over on my left side I was able to see my babies’ pictures. To this day I believe had my wife not placed those pictures I would have had a very hard time not giving up.
My wife and mother visited me almost every day and made it very clear to me and all the staff at the hospital that I was loved. One instance in particular was told to me when I was still in ICU one of the nurses was very lax in her duties when it came to caring for me. My mom and wife walked in while I was still in a coma and noticed that this particular nurse had left me in a shambles. My sheet was completely of my body leaving me exposed, the Johnny I was wearing was disheveled, I had drool and mucous running down to my chest and had positioned my body to the point that I was almost through the bars and falling out of the bed. My mom’s blood boiled. She was furious at that nurse and immediately contacted my doctor and then went to the charge nurse and laid into her. The nurse was immediately removed from the floor and never allowed in the entire ward as long as I was a patient. My mom turned out to be the embodiment of my guardian angel.
In my life I am now at the point that the only thing that matters is how much love you have in your life.
I was not able to talk because of the damaged airway and trach tube they had in me but I would try to write. It went down on paper as nothing but scribbles. I was too shaky because of the morphine and other medications they had me on, so it was very difficult to communicate.
Every day was a struggle. I heard the bells, buzzers and beeps of the ICU all day and night. I could hear, feel and sense the death and struggle for life that was going on all around me in the ICU unit. I felt the sadness and pain when the nurses lost a patient and the grief of the families that came to visit their battered and sometimes brain dead loved ones, not knowing that I was full well expected to be one of them and was never expected to live to begin with.
I felt the stress when they got a workout by attempting to save someone. I could also sense the relief and joy in the nurses voices when someone survived and left ICU because they were getting better. These ICU nurses are some of the most devoted hard working people that I have ever had the misfortune of meeting. They are unsung heroes to the utmost degree. I don’t have a clue how they get the strength to go to work each day. I have met some of the wealthiest and hardworking people on earth and they don’t hold a candle to these men and women.
When the nurses came to my bedside to medicate me I began to refuse by shaking my head no. I only allowed them to give me my antibiotics. I was determined that despite the pain and surroundings I wanted to stay coherent. I also knew that I wanted to go home in a few weeks despite the fact that everyone including all my doctors expected me to be there for at least another year. If I stayed on the pain medicine than I would lose any progress that I was making. The drugs were very strong and they left me in a total haze. I didn’t want that.
On a funnier note, when I came out of the coma I still couldn't talk and there was a young yet very capable nurse that I believe was Japanese. She was also a Buddhist. I was tied to the bed and every time her shift would start she would take the remote control for the TV out of my hand and turn on this oriental music. You know what I'm referring to; the twang, twang of the mandolin that you hear in oriental restaurants.
I would have the TV channel on the Seinfeld show and be just dozing off when she would walk in, take the remote and say, "let’s put on some peaceful music so you can make Buddha happy". I couldn't talk or use my arms so I just laid there screaming in my head I'm not a Buddhist and this music is driving me nuts.
She was one of those nurses that every time you got comfortable and dozed off through the night she would come in and wake you up to take your sleeping medicine. She would do that just as I got comfortable and began falling asleep she would come in and roll me over into a new position so I had to try to get comfortable all over again.
I remember one day at around 6:50PM the day shift ended at 7pm. The nurse who was on duty taking care of me during the day had to give me a sponge bath due to the fact that the respiratory therapists came in moments earlier and gave me my daily ritual breathing treatment which consisted of them sticking a long, thin plastic shaft and saline solution into my trach-tube. This was a treatment that was designed to prevent pneumonia but it felt like he was scraping the inside walls of my lungs and airway. I don’t know who it is supposed to feel it was excruciatingly painful and every time respiratory gave me this breathing treatment I ended up vomiting.
As a result; the smell of vomit lingered on my felt lined neck brace despite the fact that the nurses washed and alternated two of them daily. This particular breathing treatment was really bad and I vomited all over myself and the bed. The nurse on duty had to stay past her shift and gave me a nice sponge bath and changed all my bedding. She was so nice. She kept checking to make sure I was comfortable during the bath and said it was horrible that I had to constantly go through that. She told me that in my condition it was one of the few ways they were able to stave off pneumonia.
After she finished the sponge bath she loosened my hand straps so I could move my hands a bit and gave me the TV remote. I put something funny on TV, got comfortable and fell asleep.
Three hours later after the shift change the Buddhist nurse came in, woke me up out of a dead sleep and said time for your sponge bath.
Keep in mind I had no way to communicate to her that I just had one so leave me the heck alone and let me sleep. I got another sponge bath. Then she took the remote away tightened my hand straps and put that twangy music back on and said her famous; "let’s put on some peaceful music and make Buddha happy". Like I said "She was the nurse that every hour through the night just as you get comfortable and doze off she would come to my bed, wake me up and say time to change positions and physically roll me over and raise the back of the bed so I'm sitting up further. I got no rest when she was there. She did keep me impeccably clean and well taken care of though. She was also the most thorough in her performance.
While I was lying in bed in ICU during the 2 weeks after I came out of the coma there wasn’t a whole lot to do, nor was I able to move very much. They kept me strapped to the bed because they feared me pulling out my trach tube again and my airway couldn’t handle that again. The room was bare and stark. It had glass walls with a curtain in the front that separated me from the constant buzz and activity indicative to a busy trauma ICU. That next week I did a whole lot of soul searching and praying. I also began to constantly visualize myself doing the things that I couldn’t currently do such as breathing on my own, eating, walking, running and sports. I believed in my heart that I would get to do all those again.
I knew that I was in pretty bad shape I just wasn’t aware nor did I know at the time what I looked like or how bad off things really were. I also realized at that point that I had to really look to God for the answers that I believe in time have already begun to become clear. I needed to make some drastic changes in my life.
Some of the changes came without choice due to my injuries. Other changes and limitations are more difficult. I also realize that I needed to put my life into written format, hence this book. I have never done anything like this. As a matter of fact every time I had to turn in a book report in school I would skip that class. I hate writing.
Going through all that I have been through and what I still have to deal with I guess is God’s way of getting my attention. I have come to realize that before all this happened I was suffering and didn’t know it. The way I see it is that I have shared my faith with very few over the past several years. I was found and didn’t know it.
Over the next several weeks in the hospital bed I began to do sit ups and leg lifts without the nurses catching me. The main problem with this is the fact that they had an IV in my arm and all the movement made it fall out. The nurses got so frustrated with me because it was difficult to reinsert one in my arm and there were only a couple of nurses able to find a decent vein with no joints nearby. I recall the nurses put 5 IV’s into my arms over a two day period before they put a line in my upper arm.
I recall the occupational therapist asking me to try to write just a few days out of the coma. She asked me what my goals were for my recovery over the next several months here in the hospital. To her surprise I wrote to her in my drug induced scribble that I wanted to walk out of the hospital on my own two feet with my own voice by January 23, 2006. She asked me why that date and I tried to the best of my ability to write that my mother in law who flew in from Maine to be with my wife and children was going to be leaving to go home soon and my wife needed me to be home so she wouldn’t be alone. The thought was there but the words went down on paper as complete scribbles.
Oddly enough, on January 11th 2006 I was moved out of ICU to a room up on the main floor.
The evening I was moved out of ICU my brothers Corey and Tobey came to visit me in the room and after 2 hours of being together and me typing on Tobey’s laptop to communicate; Tobey asked me: “Jeff, can you hum, try it?” I tried and pushed with everything I had and out gurgled a “hmmm”. We looked at each other in shear amazement my eyes began streaming tears. He then said “try saying hello” I pushed really hard again with my lungs and a raspy “hello” struggled out.
We immediately made 3 calls; one to my wife and Mother in Law who was staying with her at the house, the other to my mother and the other to my father. All I could say to each of them over and over again was “I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU” tears were streaming down my brothers and my face. I also heard them crying tearfully “I love you” back to me. I practiced speaking all night that night. I could barely sleep. The following morning my trauma surgeon entered the room and I Yelled out: “hey doc, what’s up?” He smiled in excitement and responded with: “oh my god, he’s got a voice.” With a little begging on my part he went ahead and ordered that the nurses to go ahead and figure out a way to give me a shower protecting my trach tube and he asked me if I would like to go home in two or three weeks. I was overjoyed with the idea.
Over the next several days I made every attempt at changing my own bandages and making sure I could show that I could care for myself. The physical therapists were concerned because I tried so hard that I attempted to move faster than I should have but I was determined to walk out of that hospital on my own two feet and was overjoyed that I was talking with my own voice.
One week later on January 18th 2006 I was sent home on my own two feet from the hospital. Due to hospital protocol I was wheeled out of the building. The remaining parts of my treatments were to be handled on an outpatient basis.
My respiratory surgeon said that in the 20 years she has been practicing she has never seen severe adult trachealmalacia heal in any adult especially in a person whose trach was crushed so severely. She then told me in no uncertain terms that mine healed. I now have no need for a breathing apparatus and I am able to breathe on my own and after 1 year I recently had my tracheotomy tube removed.
I was assigned in home nursing to help care for my trach and feeding tube. I also had a physical therapist that would see me several times a week to help me eventually walk without a walker. The most amazing thing is how fast I have been healing.
This is the Introduction video that we used in kickstarter. It will be edited as soon as I can figure out how to download it considering I lost the original.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/deep/awakening-in-the-deep-end/widget/video.html
I am 48 years old now and it is my understanding and best recollection that when I was I was 4 years old I was walking through the woods with my uncle Bob when I fell to the ground in severe pain in my hip unable to walk. He carried me out of the woods back to his house where my parents took me to the emergency room. The doctors checked me out, performed x-rays apparently At birth my left leg began developing a rare and at the time an incurable degenerative bone disorder called Legg Calve Perthes, actually one of the worst cases they had ever seen.
I remember the doctor putting me in an A-frame cast that weighed about 60 pounds. It was very discouraging for me at the time. I can recall my Aunt Marcia and Uncle Danny gave me a little New Testament bible and begun telling me about Gods love. I memorized John 14:1-6 and remember reciting that passage over and over again to myself trying to make sense of my situation.
At 5 I was also diagnosed with a lazy eye so the doctors put a patch over my one good eye attempting to get the bad eye to work. Well, I can recall one cool afternoon being outside in front of my home playing. I had my Matchbox cars and across the street I saw my neighbor Paul sitting on his front porch with his face in his hands crying. I stumbled over to him with my crutches. He looked up at me and I asked him what was the matter and he responded in tears you wouldn’t understand. I quoted John 14:1-6
“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.”
When I stopped talking he just sat there looking at me dumbfounded because here is this little kid in leg braces and crutches with a patch over one eye telling him life isn't so bad, and then said “thanks Jeffrey, I needed to hear that”.
When I was six years old and pretty much until I was 8 I spent the better part of that time in the Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children in Springfield Massachusetts. It was an interesting experience. While there I underwent a long surgery on my left hip that put me in a body cast for 9 months and after the second or third surgery was told that I would probably never walk. My left hip had completely degenerated from the ball to two inches down the femur.
When the doctors finally came to the conclusion that there was nothing more they could do I was released from the hospital and put in leg braces.
The next several years were a blur. It’s difficult to explain. Almost as if that period was in black and white watching someone else’s life. I remember tidbits. One of interest was my dog; Whimpy. He was a Labrador retriever and very rambunctious. My father was in the Rainbow vacuum sales business and he traded some portion of the purchase price with a customer for the dog. My mom hated that dog. He was so crazy that my parents kept him chained up in the back yard. He really was the dumbest dog. Every evening he would get loose from his chains and it never failed that my father would have to come out of the house in the middle of the night due to him crying so loud from his entanglements with porcupines. My poor dad could be found standing out in the yard in his underwear in six inches of snow with pliers trying to get the quills out of the Whimpy's nose. The final straw for dad though was when the dog jumped through the basement window to get into the house covered in mud and ran across my mom's vintage gold colored Sofa and the havock he wreaked in the house trying to capture him. My dad gave him away that afternoon to some couple in the parking lot of the general store at the end of our street.
One of my other recollections while in my caste was sliding down the stairs from the second floor to the first at our home in Whindam, NH. My mom had to repaint the stairs about once a week as a result. The reality was that getting up and down the stairs was no easy feat when your legs were in braces .
Another little event was when Dad thought it would be a good idea if he wrapped my caste in a plastic bag he could allow me to float in a raft in the swimming pool. unfortunately the cast sunk with me attached. Dad had to rescue me off the bottom of the pool. That was a funny incident. My mom could have killed him for that little tryst. My caste nevertheless got completely soaked and as you can imagine was a 100 pound chunk of soggy plaster. I believe it was about that time that the doctors switched me from an A frame caste to A frame braces.
Soon thereafter winter came and in January 1976 immediately following a major blizzard my family moved us to Florida from New Hampshire. My dad decided that rather than renting a U-Haul he would purchase an old horse truck, loaded it up with everything we owned and left. That decision turned out to be a wise one. He sold the truck upon arriving to Florida for more than he paid for it.
I liked Florida and I remember being outside of our condo one Saturday morning while a gentleman approached me and began to talk to me about Jesus. I told him that I already knew all about him. I took my worn out little New Testament out of my pocket and showed it to him. My life would never be the same. It turned out that Jim was the person responsible for bringing children to a little church in town and invited me to Sunday school that Sunday. My parents happily allowed me to go since it would allow them a little rest on Sunday morning. I was thrilled.
Within a very short period of time Jim had me leading songs at the front of the bus. I joined him every Saturday in his visits to all the children to Sunday school. Within a short period of time we were running 2 busses full of children. I was still in leg braces but I got around as well as any of the other children I knew.
In 1977 we went to my annual check-up at the Shriner’s Hospital in Miami and again had the same prognosis. The doctors made it clear that even if I ever did walk again that my hip would be so deformed that I would have a severe limp and struggle later in life with arthritis.
The most intriguing part of this is that children rarely listen when adults tell them they cannot do something. This is a part of the story that I am grateful for not listening to adults regarding that matter. Something else was working in my life. Faith.
If you think that it was easy getting myself up in the morning with that disease, think again. My legs were in braces spread eagle. I had hoped and prayed that I would someday walk and new that if I had faith that I would.
Every day at school and the playgrounds was difficult for me. Children can be very cruel and I used to get beat up almost every day just because I was different. I tried to stand my ground but most of the time I couldn’t move fast enough with that big leg brace on so many days I came home from school with either black eyes or cuts and scrapes. It was pretty rough.
I remember one day on the playground a few of the neighborhood kids ganged up on me and decided to beat me silly because they could. The boys knocked me to the ground and one of the boys thought it would be funny to take is pants down and make me smell his but. I didn’t like that prospect and grabbed the nearest stick and as he stuck his bare backside in my face I quickly inserted the stick. He screamed with terror. He ran home telling me he was going to tell. I replied go ahead.
I went home pretty bruised and told my mom what happened. That night his mom showed up at our door threatening to sue because he had to have the stick removed at the emergency room. My mom gave her a piece of her mind about the fact that her boys and others had been terrorizing me for the last 2 years. Then my mom had me come out and talk to the lady.
When I came in the room and she saw that I was in leg braces and heard what her boy and others had been doing to me she was livid. The following evening, her son was dragged up the stairs to our door by his ear and ordered by his dad to apologize to me. He made him swear to never touch me again. I never saw him out of his house again until they moved away. Apparently the other boys faced similar fates from their parents once they found out how they had been treating me.
In 1978 we made the four hour trek back to Miami for my next check-up and something miraculous took place. The doctors couldn’t figure it out. They ordered more x-rays and tests. After 2 days of tests and x-rays the doctor came into the room we were waiting in and told us that I don’t Have to wear the leg braces any more and that some how I was cured.
He said my left hip was actually better than my right hip. He told us that I would have to go through a year of physical therapy to learn to walk. He then took the braces off my legs and told us we were free to go. I said ok, I picked up my braces, jumped off the exam table and walked out of the room. He cancelled the physical therapy.
On the way back from Miami dad and mom asked if there was anything I want to do, now that I can walk. I said yes. “I want t ride a bike” so we stopped at Service Merchandise on the way home and I picked out a nice yellow one with a banana seat.
When we got home my dad put the bike together and I anxiously waited for him to complete it. We then went outside to the sidewalk in front of the Condo. I’ll never forget the feeling the first time he pushed me off. I made it the entire length of the sidewalk roughly 100 yards. I fell down in the grass and cried. He walked over and told me that I’m going to fall. It’s a part of learning. So I guess you could say I learned how to ride a bike pretty much the same day I learned to walk. I was 10 years old.
That’s a bit of a reminder. Never tell me it cannot be done. I won’t buy it! You see… children don’t know it can’t be done only that they haven’t done it yet. Any one who tells me miracles don’t’ happen any more have never met me. I am walking, talking proof that they do.
The next year or two are difficult to remember clearly. I was a good boy but had been mixed up with the wrong crowd. I began experimenting with alcohol and pot and a few of the girls in the neighborhood. I also started stealing my parent’s cigarettes. By the time I was in 6th grade I had already been smoking daily. I got caught several times in school with cigarettes in my locker. I did join the school news team but that didn’t last long since I had to be there an hour before school which was next to impossible since I had to walk my younger brother to school a mile the opposite direction each morning. It made me late for school almost every day.
It upset me to the point that I decided to not show up for homeroom each day and decided to hang out at the baseball dugouts in the morning before school and smoke weed with the druggies.
My dad always kept my hair cut short so I never quite fit in with the druggies. I also was a little too rambunctious for the well behaved children to want to be around me much although I was very charismatic and got along with almost everyone. Well, Almost everyone.
There were a number of bullies in my school. I decided that I wouldn’t take their harassment any more so I ended up in a few high profile playground fights. I usually held my own but there was a couple of big kids that took great pleasure in making me bruise or bleed.
One day I skipped the first half of school and got caught by the principle coming back on campus. I got paddled hard that day by both the principle and my dad.
Back then corporal punishment was the order of the day. The principal was allowed to spank with a paddle. I believe now that we should go back to that based on how I see some children walk all over their teachers and parents. Any time I got paddled at school my dad told the principal to make sure to let him know how many swats I got because he would wake me up and double those swats when he got home from work. I remember many nights lying in bed waiting for my dad crying until he came home knowing I was in for it.
My dad finally had enough of me getting into trouble at school and decided to put me into private school. I guess he thought that it would be better to have a tighter structure. That turned out to be very detrimental to my life at the time. I didn’t need more structure what I did need was a more meaningful and free environment that my mind could be challenged and at the same time expand on my creativity. Back then they just wanted to medicate you if you were different.
During that period of time I witnessed a lot of inconsistencies on the part of my dad between what he said I should do and what he did. He also never really allowed me to open up to him without repercussion. So I refused to disclose my true feelings and never had an outlet to express myself.
After coming home from the initial hospital stay.
The car.
Before the wreck
Mellissa and I after the failed surgery in 2010. I was in so much pain in this photo from the entire jaw being abscessed and infected.
I will be adding to the story as I continue to write it.