Mr. Miller
English Comp. Pd. 3
A Reminder that Life is Good
I remember so little of my seventh grade year. I know it was different from anything I had ever experienced before, but I do not have many specific recollections. I remember the late winter of that year like it was yesterday. I had just been bowling, a day or two earlier. My right ankle began to swell to gigantic size. I could not put any weight on it because of the magnitude of the pain. My dad was a doctor, and he requisitioned some crutches for me to use until I could walk on my foot again. We were concerned that it could be a spider bite from the rental shoe at the bowling alley. I took some anti-inflammatory drugs, and after a short time the swelling subsided and I was able to return to my normal activities. It was not a big deal; I could forget that experience and move on. However, it was not meant to work out that way. A few weeks later my right knee began to swell to tremendous size as well. My dad decided it would probably be best to head into the emergency to get everything checked out. At the hospital, I had thirty-three cubic-centimeters of thick fluid drawn out of my knee. The fluid came out like molasses on a cold day. The poor nurse was pulling as hard as she could, and only a small bit of fluid made its way into the test tube at a time. The needle that was being used to extract my unwanted fluid from my knee was quite large, and the entire process turned out to be excruciatingly painful. The doctor wanted to take a number of tests to see what type of disease could be causing this unusual reaction. So the nurse drew a blood from my arm, and the doctor checked off which tests he wanted to have performed. My father, also a doctor, brought up a disease or two that he thought it could possibly be. One of the diseases my dad wanted to have me tested for was Lyme’s disease. The doctor had not planned on having that test run. After conversing for a short time with my dad about my symptoms in a confusing and difficult to understand dialect that I call doctor language, the physician agreed that I should be tested for Lyme’s. At that point we did not even consider that a real possibility because I had never found a tick bite; it was more of a precautionary test. I went home from that emergency room visit with no answers. We just had to wait until the results came back from the numerous tests. A longer wait I have never endured in my life. There were so many possibilities. Near the top of our ‘possibility list’ was juvenile arthritis. This possibility scared me more than just about any of the other options, and for a time my parents and I considered it to be the most probably answer. That was an extreme low point for me. I was off my feet and unable to do much of anything, except to consider the possibilities. Juvenile arthritis scared me because it could mean that I was done with competitive sports and active activities forever. As a seventh grader, I could hardly think of a worse fate. After days of waiting, the results were finally in for all of the tests. The Lyme’s test had come back positive, but there was a fairly high percentage of false positive cases with this blood test. So I needed to have another more definite test. As a precautionary measure I was put right on oral antibiotics. The symptoms had gotten worse since that first swelling had appeared. Going into the next test I was tired all of the time and I was weak to the point where all I did was hang out on the couch. The new test came in the form of a spinal tap. When the needle went into my back the pain was phenomenal. My arms flung outwards as I tried to get away from the needle now entering my back. That test took some time to return, but when it did the test turned out to be positive. The news was good and bad. It was bad because Lyme disease is not something that is fun to go through, and we knew it must be in some of the later stages because we had never found the tick that bit me. The news was good because it meant that I did not have juvenile arthritis, which was such a relief to me that I was actually happy to have Lyme’s. My case was one of the more severe cases in Lebanon county, because we had not caught it early. I had the distinguished honor of going to see a specialist in the area, who felt that she needed to educate me in all the ways of Lyme disease. She saw me after I already knew that it was Lyme disease, so when she told me that I did in fact have Lyme disease I was not exactly thrilled that I had wasted my time with her. It was an extremely awkward visit, and I could not wait until she finally was through with me so that I could leave. In many ways the visit to her office was even more unpleasant than the spinal tap and Lyme disease in general. Now that things had been clarified and I knew for certain what the problem was the only thing that remained was for me to continue taking my medications three times a day. I sat at home and did nothing as the pill bottle began to empty. ‘Nothing,’ of course, is relative. Some people from my church loaned me movies and I had a few video games to play, but apart from memorizing the entire Pirates of the Caribbean movie I effectively did nothing. I was even too tired and weak to read on most days. And so I spent much of my time thinking about getting better and dreaming about my future. When the pills began to near their end, I still had not gotten better. At this point we realized that I needed to have a stronger means of ridding my body of this disease. I got an IV line put into my upper chest, and every day I needed to connect a tube and put the medicine into my body. Eventually I began to improve. I started back to school slowly, adding hours each day until I was back to full days. At this point I still had the IV line in my shoulder and I was still receiving injections of the medicine each night even though I was back in school. Finally my time with Lyme disease was over and we could pull out the IV line. I thought that removing the tubes would be painful, but soon it was out and I had not felt a bit of pain. The only sensation was a sliding feeling under my skin. I had been out of school for almost forty school days, and I had had my life put into perspective. I appreciated the ability to run at soccer practice. I understood why people thank God for their healthy bodies. I usually just took my health for granted. I considered it a right, not a privilege. Coming out from an experience like that gave me insight that many people only get after they pass their prime and can no longer run as well as their younger selves could. I discovered how lucky I really am to have a body that functions as well as it does, and how blessed I am to have the opportunity to live in this world and enjoy life every day. I now realize how much grace and mercy God has shown me, as well as how many blessings He has given to me. When I see a sports star that is on the top of his game, I sometimes wish I had ability like that. Then I remember how fortunate I am to be alive and walking, and everything is put into perspective.