Six Months On (Episode 20) — Medical Oddities
I had been awake for about an hour already when I got the text asking me to come upstairs. I dragged myself upstairs, turned left and took a deep breath before opening the door. “What will it be this time?” I thought. There was literally no telling what awaited me on the other side of the door. Expecting the unexpected I opened the door and was still shocked at what I heard.
“I can’t feel my legs.”
Mary was laying on her bed like she normally was at 7 o’clock on a Saturday morning time of the day. Her long legs stretched out under the covers.
“What?” I asked. She repeated what she said and went on to tell me that she just woke up and couldn’t feel her legs. I thought she might be stiff and just needed to get up and get some blood pumping but she said she couldn’t move them either. I helped her sit up and put her feet on the floor. When we tried to get her to stand her legs buckled and she fell back to the bed. She said she had been fine the night before but woke up and couldn’t feel her legs.
An hour later Susan and I were helping her out of the car and into the emergency room at Children’s Hospital. Whatever plans we had for that Saturday were thrown out the window. An exam in the ER found nothing so off we went to the ICU. Further examinations, x-rays, and an MRI found nothing. And yet she could not move her legs. You would have thought the ICU was infested with lice from all the head scratching that was going on. No one could come up with any medical reason for this to be happening.
Ultimately it was decided that she was suffering from something called Conversion Disorder. This condition manifests itself in different ways in different people but it is essentially the body’s way of saying that that there is too much stress to deal with right now so something’s got to give. In Mary’s case it was stress building up from school projects combined with the normal stress that every teenager goes through. We went home a day later with a brand new walker. The treatment plan was to do nothing. Rest and things should return to normal eventually. (I hate it when doctors use the word the word “eventually.”)
For what was not the first time in her life, Mary had stumped the medical experts. Just another chapter in Mary’s book of medical oddities. Within a couple of days she was back on her feet and running around as though nothing had happened. She made some adjustments to her activities and learned some stress management techniques and hasn’t had a situation like that since. One of the things we learned through that experience is the amount of pressure kids are under these days to overachieve. It doesn’t necessarily come from parents. Kids who want to succeed put a lot of pressure on themselves but they are not always aware of the stress it causes them. Mary is now keenly self-aware and knows when to step back and take a breathe.

So when she was told I was going to the doctor and then going to the ER, I can only imagine Mary reacted with something like “Wuss” or that what we call going to the doctor, she calls “Tuesday.” While she and her sister are very different in their approaches to many things, they both seem to have inherited my knack for under reacting when it comes to the welfare of others. It’s not that we don’t care about you. We care very much. We’re just not convinced that it’s any of your business.
As we now know this would turn out to be no ordinary trip to the doctor and so even Mary must have been surprised to see where all this was headed. Here she was in the middle of her senior year of high school. The light at then end of the tunnel was in sight. Her class load for the Spring semester would be pretty light and it looked like smooth sailing to graduation in May. And then Dad goes and pulls a stunt like this. Thanks, Pops.
If there’s one thing Mary loves it’s trying new things. She has an adventurous spirit. Mary will jump into the pool head first. (Unless, of course she has some bizarre ear infection from being bitten by a rare tick from the mountains of Uruguay that somehow found its way to our house and crawled in through the window of her upstairs bedroom.) But even then she’s getting in that pool.
Though she never expected that her new adventure would be making daily trips to the hospital and navigating the torturous hell that is hospital parking, she and Betsy both took on their new roles without hesitation. The new routine included getting themselves up in the mornings and making sure the dogs were taken care of, going to the grocery store, getting new tires and all the everything else that needed doing while Susan remained at the hospital with me. Mary, through her friend, Brandon, (What up, Big B!) learned to changed the oil in her car. They both took a page from their mother and were rock solid in their own time of need.
During my time in the hospital there were many people who showed great kindness and generosity to us. I’ve mentioned several of the ways that people showed their love and support but the coolest gesture came from a far away land but it started at home.
A Gift from Afar
The town of Eugene, Oregon sits peacefully on the banks of the Willamette River, two hours south of Portland. Just off Interstate 5, it rests halfway between the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade Mountain Range. Since 1876 Eugene has been home to the University of Oregon. With a student population of 26,000 it has become a hallmark school in the PAC-12 conference. The Ducks have a long, rich tradition in Track and Field and an even longer history of football that most fans would just as soon forget. But over the past 25 years things have turned around and over the last 10 years they been among the top teams in the nation. (Except for last year but that was a fluke.)
Having grown up in Arkansas I’ve always been a Razorback fan. Always will be. But over the last 8 years or so I’ve become a huge Oregon Ducks fan. I’ve never been to Eugene and have only been in the state of Oregon twice but it’s a state and team that I’ve come to love as though I was born and raised there. I’m not sure exactly what drew me to them initially but they found a diehard fan out here in the heart of the SEC.
Knowing what a big fan I am, Mary decided to see what the Ducks could do for me in my time of need. While I was on the ventilator she contacted the University’s athletic department and told them my story. She asked if it would be possible to get an autographed picture of the football team. As it was Winter break the team was not on campus and many of the newly-hired coaching staff were on the recruiting trail. But she was told that they could send a care package from the athletic department. So she gave them our address and she waited, and waited and waited. Torrential flooding and massive snow fall in the Pacific Northwest was causing major delays in mail and package delivery. It took a while but finally the box showed up filled with a T-shirt, a Pac-12 hat and a towel with the school’s iconic “O” on it.

It was a simple gesture from a school that I did not attend nor am I a donor or a booster. Although, since the school’s primary benefactor is Nike founder, Phil Knight, I guess anyone who buys anything made by Nike is technically donating to the school. (And I do love their $50 middle-aged white guy shoes.) But more importantly it was Mary’s outside box thinking made it such a special gift. I’m told I’m not an easy person to buy for because I don’t really want stuff. This time though, she cracked the code.
As parents we all want the best for and from our kids but you never know how things will turn out when the stuff hits the fan. This little adventure was an exercise in independence or both of my kids but it strengthened the bond between the 4 parts of this thing called “us.”
