Directions. Randy Beal

Directions

Published in eBook format by The Route Group

ISBN 978-0-9850587-6-0

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage

and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote

short excerpts in a review.

This book is dedicated to Aunt Sandy.

I can't thank you enough for supporting my dreams.

THANK YOU!

Acknowledgments

Connie, thanks for everything in helping us to have a child. My therapists and drivers, thank you for getting me to therapy and teaching me some new workouts and workarounds. All my friends and family, thanks for accepting me as I am now and making me feel kind of normal.

A Path

I've been working on the railroad . . .

Or at least I used to. It was a family business, so I grew into it slowly. My dad was a machinist for as long as I could remember, managing a plant that re-manufactured railroad parts. He started me out mowing the front lawn, and I would come in and talk to the shop guys during coffee breaks. By the time I was in high school, my dad had bought his own refurbishing business and I started part-time while I finished my senior year. One week after graduating from high school, I was working there full time. Before long I fell into a comfortable rhythm of faking my way through the ins and outs of helping to run a small family business. Managing payroll, taking customer service calls, keeping the shop guys in line: all this fell to me in some form or another, and I pretended to know what I was doing. "Fake it 'til you make it," I would say.

When my dad passed away, things became even more real for me. I had to step up my game and take on more responsibility. I was the man of the house now. I could do this. I had to do this to make my dad proud. So I settled back into a regular routine of splitting my time between the office and the shop, trying to pick up the slack, and trying to grow a new part of the business. Everything was moving along just swimmingly. It wasn't necessarily my dream job. I often thought there was something missing. But it was comfortable.

Two letters changed everything: MS.

You can read about my journey through illness in my first book, unDIAGNOSED. I gradually found myself in a place where my declining health stripped me first of the ability to walk, then of the power to work. It was debilitating. It was humiliating. It was devastating.

But I couldn't stay in that desolate place. I had to do something. My sister and I started documenting the illness, at first just to make sense of all the medical hurdles on the road to a diagnosis of my condition. Soon it became more than that. I felt there was a story here that needed to be told, that could help someone else who might be going through something like this.

So I started writing. There were many challenges, not the least of which being that I had no idea what I was doing. I never let that stop me. The "fake it 'til you make it" mantra rang in my head. There were plenty of challenges presented by MS. It was a long road, but with support along the way from family and friends, a new me emerged at the end of the tunnel. Randy, the author. I never would have thought I would call myself that ten years prior. (Nor would my poor, poor English teachers through the years!)

I had reinvented myself.

Or so I thought.

The thing is, once wasn't enough. And twice wasn't enough. I wish I could say it were, but over the years I discovered I had to reinvent myself in numerous areas, multiple times, continuously.

As I dove into the topic of reinvention, I discovered a lot of existing material already out there. It was almost overwhelming.

This is not a self-help book to add to the collection. I will not be giving you step by step guidance on how to reinvent yourself.

But this is an honest account of my journey of reinvention. Everyone has a path to travel and a story to tell. I hope your path is made clearer by having travelled mine.

Here We Go

It wasn't a deep conversation. It might have gone something like this if I put it in play format.

Husband: Hey, babe, let's have a kid.

Wife: (sarcastically) Right. Because you're not kid enough for me to take care of.

Husband: You know you want to. We owe it to the world to pass on our particular brand of crazy.

Wife: Well all right then. You know this won't be easy. You sure you want to put up with a hormonal version of me?

Husband: Good point. Let's just go to the pound and rescue a dog.

(He pauses dramatically to wait for her reaction. She shrugs.)

Husband: OK, OK. You win. Yes, I'm up for the challenge. Bring on the Mom-zilla. I promise I'll be a good boy.

Wife: OK, let's do this.

[End scene]

If you think this sounds like Jake and Rachel from my second book, A Family Thing, you're right. Those characters were loosely based on me and my wife and they were dealing with, among other things, the upcoming birth of a child. When Emily and I discussed having a child, it wasn't a very deep discussion either, but it was far from the playful banter of the couple above.

We knew it was going to be a challenge.

First of all, I was a big part of the challenge. I need a lot of attention with all my physical limitations. I'm like a second kid myself. Sometimes a third kid. That's a lot for Emily to shoulder alone. I didn't want to put her through all that if she wasn't up for it.

I had mountains of doubts about whether I was up for it too. My mind zoomed ahead to when my child would be older. Would the kid be embarrassed that I was in a wheelchair, that I talk funny and move awkwardly? If we had a girl, I'd never be able to take her to a daddy-daughter dance. If we had a boy, I would never be able to play a simple game of catch with him. Physically I couldn't be there the way I wanted to.

Emily and I are always up for a challenge. We didn't know what was ahead but we wanted to face the future hand in hand and with a tiny hand latching on to ours. So we decided to go for it.

The first thing was to find an IVF doctor. Friends of ours recommended a guy to us and my urologist seconded, so we set up an appointment with Dr. Sommer. He ordered up a battery of tests to determine if we could conceive. For Emily, it was a straightforward test to make sure her eggs were healthy. For me, like everything else, it was more difficult. Let's just say I'm a pain in the butt! We had to have a specialty urologist do a sperm extraction surgery. Thankfully, I was out for that so I won't be able to give you a detailed account of what was going on with my junk. I know some of you are disappointed.

An agonizing week later we met with Dr. Sommer to go over the results. He was a pretty straight shooter, unlike my sperm, which was apparently dead. I'm not sure I remember much else after he told us this. I was calm on the surface but really distraught at yet another hurdle in my already rocky road. I do remember him saying that the only real option for us to conceive was via a sperm donor. I did not want to hear this.

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