unDIAGNOSED. Randy Beal
Copyright © 2012 by Randy Beal
Publish Green
212 3rd Ave North, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612.455.2293
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.
Disclaimer: I have tried to recreate events, locales, and conversations from my memories of them. In order to maintain their anonymity in some instances I have changed the names of individuals and places. I may have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence.
Trademarks: All of the following words, phrases, and facilities mentioned in this book are registered trademarks®: NY Jets, ALCO, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Mountain Dew, Cheetos, Atkins diet, Bears, Oprah, CAT scan, Hooters, Thera-Band, IHOP, Denny's, White Sox, MarianJoy, Mayo Clinic
ISBN: 978-0-9850587-2-2
This book is dedicated to
Dad, Matt, Tom, & Lawrence
Acknowledgments
I want to give acknowledgment to all the doctors, nurses, therapists, drivers, transporters, and office staff who have helped to care for me through the years. To my family and friends, thanks for helping me during each stage of the illness. Michael, thanks for all your help on this project and for rocking the cover design. Aunt Sandy, thanks for believing in me and my dream. The biggest acknowledgment is to Bob: without you this book never could have been written.
My Dream
I had a dream on September 2, 2006, in which I saw the Sears Tower on TV. A huge white blanket draped one side of this Chicago landmark and helicopters flittered on and off the screen. Something BIG was happening, and I felt compelled to be there.
The next instant, I was there, in a wheelchair, being pushed up the last few internal steps of the Tower onto the roof. Now I realized what the hub-bub was all about. Chicago Mayor, Richard Daley, was perched on the ledge of the building, about to throw himself over.
I knew I had to do something so I began talking to him. He told me that he had just been diagnosed with cancer and wanted to end his life. What better way for Chicago’s mayor to make a grand exit than off the side of the iconic Sears Tower? I don’t remember exactly what I said to Mayor Daley to talk him out of it. Perhaps I told him things I imagine you would tell a person about to leap off a building. Things like: “You don’t have to jump. You have so much to live for. You can beat this; many people do.”
Whatever it was, it worked. He left the ledge, crisis averted, and I was elated. I had saved the life of the mayor of Chicago! I turned to see droves of people lined up to jump next and for multitudes of reasons. One at a time, I talked each one off the ledge and continued to do so until I woke abruptly, wide-eyed and marveling at how vivid the dream had been.
I’m not normally a vivid dreamer, and I’ll certainly never forget this one. In many ways, the dream captures my purpose in writing this book. I want to be able to help people, no matter their social standing or background, who have reached a similar point of despair, no matter the reason. I want to be able to share my story in hopes that something I have to say will spark renewed hope and the will to go on. I've talked myself off the ledge many times. Now I want to help you do the same.
A Stupid Teenager
I’m not quite sure where to start. I struggled with this for months when I first contemplated writing a book and it got me absolutely nowhere. So I’m going to start with now: a blog entry from early 2007.
What a feeling! It's been awhile, but today we went walking. I've done a lot of standing and other exercises to help with control and strength, but today I just knew it was time to go for it. To date the most I've walked without braces was 6 steps. Today I walked 14 steps, took a break, and did the exact same 2 more times, and finished with 9 steps, a grand total of 51. At one point while walking, I got a huge smile on my face and my mom thought I was going to take off running. The steps I took today felt so good. They really helped my psyche.
As you can tell, I was thrilled that I was able to take 51 steps, without braces. Even better, check out the following week’s entry:
If you can do it in your mind, you can do it in body. I set a goal of 30 continuous steps and today I did 31. That was on the way to a grand total of 202. Just 11 days ago I could only do 51 with good amounts of rest between each round of steps. The most I could do continuously was 14. Whew what a difference. Talk about being on a high. And I feel like I could do more too.
Two hundred and two steps in a single day! That was monumental. It made me want to set the bar even higher. So I set the next single-day step goal to 300 and was excited about the day when I would walk again, unassisted.
Funny that the task of telling my story was so daunting to me when I thought of everything I’ve been through from the beginning. But starting like I did with where I am right now gave me just the jump start I needed. I think the first step out of any seemingly hopeless situation has got to be taking an assessment of where you currently are. It’s an assessment that you have to repeat over and over at each stage of recovery. Knowing where you stand (or sit in my case) is critical to knowing where you will go next.
You’ve probably gathered by now that I’m confined to a wheelchair and am only now starting to take steps again. How I came to be in this state is a long and strange story.
Prior to 2000, I was your typical stupid teen-aged male: healthy, active, and enjoying life. I was a football lineman for our high school team and was pretty ingrained into football culture and the parties and popularity that go along with it. During off-season, the football team would do a lot of power lifting to stay in shape and I got into it enough to officially join the power-lifting team my junior and senior years. Our team took 2nd place at a local power-lifting meet and 1st place the next year. I never thought twice about how great it felt to run across the football field or to stretch my legs out after an aggressive lift. I took these things for granted, as most teenagers do.
Like most teenagers, I also started to think about ways to get out of Dodge. I think about travel a lot now, but back then it was relatively new to me. I had heard of exotic places beyond the five states that bordered my home state, but had never ventured outside that circle of safety. So in 1998, I jumped at the chance to go on a summer mission trip with my church youth group to Mexico for 10 days.
Our group of twenty teen-agers, plus two chaperones, flew first to St. Louis to catch a connecting flight to Mexico City. This was my first-ever flight, and I pretty much kept the air sickness bag glued to my face. Turbulence was not a part of my vocabulary back then. But I, at least, felt a sense of accomplishment just getting through that first leg of the flight.
In St. Louis, I was singled out from the group as the only one without proper documentation. (I had a copy of my birth certificate and not the real deal.) This meant I had to stay an extra night alone in St. Louis, get my parents to overnight the birth certificate, and fly alone to Mexico City the next day. Not the greatest first travel experience, but again I enjoyed the sense of accomplishment at being on my own, if only for a day.
I rejoined the group without further incident. In Mexico City, we split up and lodged with various hosts from a local church. I and two other compadres were matched with a young single guy who lived in a multi-level home. He gave us a tour of Mexico City by night and helped us order tacos from street vendors. They actually cooked the taco meat in a hollowed out tree trunk. I felt very suave and sophisticated.
To give you an idea of my physical state at the time, we actually did some pretty strenuous work on that trip. Part of our mission was to help build a rehab center. I remember busting my back digging a