My story

The day it all began.

The day is June 10th, 1996.  I awoke early in the morning complaining of the worst headache I ever had.  My mother went to go get some medicine to help take the headache away.  When she came back I was having seizures.  I had had an aneurysm in my brain.  She called an ambulance.  At the hospital, I had five CAT scans and fifteen MRIs before the doctors figured out what had happened.  There was a malformation of veins and arteries that had popped.  I spent a month and a half in a coma while the doctors planned the best course of action.  

after I had awoke from my coma and the pressure in my brain had gone down enough.  The doctors decided that the only course of action was to remove the cluster of ruptured veins and arteries.  around July 15th I had my craniotomy to remove the AVM (arteriovenous malformation).  Once I woke up from the surgery, I had a year of physical therapy to recover.  

During my fourth grade academic year, I was in school for about twenty minutes in the morning before I went to rehab, and maybe an hour at the end of the day after rehab.  I didn't get to see my friends much during the school year either.  

I was an outsider now.  shunned by all of the kids for a year, like I had some sort of disease.  All of this when I was nine years old.  

Once I had learned to walk again (with the help of a leg brace (that I still wear to this day)) and I regained most of the use of my left hand, I was able to go back to school for my fifth grade academic year.  I wasn't allowed to participate in P.E. for obvious reasons.  During fifth grade, I wore a five pound weight on my left leg to help strengthen my leg.  By this point a few years had passed, I was now in the seventh grade.

 I was almost back to normal, but, I still wasn't able to use my thumb on my left hand.  Doctors suggested that I have a tendon transfer on my arm to hopefully help regain some motion in my thumb.  At this time,  they also suggested a tendon lengthening in my left leg to help me walk.  

I had to go to St. Louis Missouri to the Shriner's children's hospital for those two surgeries to be performed.  While I was in St. Louis, I met all kinds of people with similar stories.  I was also introduced to Recreational therapy.  The recreational therapy room was different from the other therapy rooms.  It was much smaller, and there were no mats (at least that I can remember).  The room was filled with all sorts of play things.  One of the best was the brand new Nintendo 64 in one corner.  

Once I was released to outpatient status, I went back to Kansas City and all of my friends.  More therapy followed the two surgeries.  But not nearly as much as the year of  therapy that followed brain surgery.  

It was at this point that I started to get serious about music.  I had played the piano before the summer of 1996, but I hadn't started back until I regained most of the use of my hands.