1997 : Sweet Tooth

Ever since mom was diagnosed with Lyme disease, sweets were rarely found in our house. Apparently eating sugar made you feel a lot worse. I suppose you would think the same would go for any sickness, but I’m just a kid. I have a sweet tooth, and I feel like I have a right to think that mom may be going overboard by completely banning sugar like it’s the black plague. Luckily for my brother and me, our dad is a junk food junkie. Even though we weren’t allowed to have sugar in the house anymore, my dad always has a “secret stash” that only the 3 of us know about….

“Now let’s see..” I thought to myself. “Sugar cookie, chocolate chip cookie, candy bar…” My choices continued but there is something about my dad’s chocolate chip cookies that made me keep running back to them. They weren’t thin or crispy. They were thick, chewy, and had just the right amount of chips vs. the right amount of cookie.

As I’m working my way through my first and only cookie that day I’m noticing a stomach ache approaching. It seems like every time I eat anything sweet, I get a stomach ache, fever, and body aches. ”Reflux again today, just like yesterday, just like every day” I thought. Acid reflux was my excuse for every ache and pain I had these days. That’s what the doctors kept telling me and doctors are supposed to know everything. At least that’s what my 7 year old brain thought.

1997 : Valentine’s Skate Night



“Oh, my!” said the little flower. “All my friends can come and go, but I must stay in one place.”



“Did you get any Valentine’s at school today?” asked my mom as I opened the car door. “Yeah, but only because everyone has to give the entire class a Valentine.” I mumbled. “Any special Valentine’s from any special boys?” my mom nudged on. “No. The boys in my class are stupid.” I said annoyed. Which was true, and when they say that girls mature faster than boys it surely applied to every boy I had ever gone to school with. “Everything alright, Megan? Did you have a bad day or something?” my mom said looking back at me through the review mirror after noticing my tone. “Yeah everything is fine. My head kind of hurts and my legs hurt. I don’t know why, but I feel okay. Can I still go roller skating with Tiff tonight?” I said trying to change the subject. “Yeah, call her when you we get home and make sure she’s still going” said mom. Tiff was one of my best friends. My first best friend. Best friends since I was 2 and she was 3. She lived a couple of houses down from me and we spent almost every weekend playing. Tonight was Friday night and roller skate night for my school at the skating rink.

“Alright boys and girls line up from youngest to oldest in the center of the rink for limbo! If you don’t want to play, please skate off the rink and sit on the side until the game is finished” announced the DJ. “You wanna play or sit this one out?” my friend Tiffany asked me while we stood around watching other kids line up. I felt funny. My legs were still aching for whatever reason but this was my weekend and I wasn’t going to let anything get me down. “Sure, let’s go!” I said racing Tiff to the rink.

5 minutes passed by and half of the kids were already out of the game or disqualified for acting up, but we were still in it and I was getting tired. “I think I’m going to bail, come find me when you’re done” I said to Tiff, skating off the rink and over to the side. My legs were aching something terrible at this point and were beginning to feel like jello. My head didn’t feel right, I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t feel sick but what in the world was going on with me? “You okay?” Tiff said while she skated off to the side to see what was up. “Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t feel right. My legs hurt really badly” I said. “Maybe you’re just tired from skating. Let’s sit here for a few minutes and rest. You’ll probably feel better by the end of the game.” Tiff encouraged me.

As time went by I began looking around the roller skating rink as if it were another dimension. Every time someone spoke it sounded like they were being sped up. Everything sounded… Fast? Voices, music, just sounds in general. Yet when I looked around it seemed as if everyone was moving in slow motion. And when I tried to speak or move I felt as if I were in slow motion myself. My mind wasn’t right. I needed to go get my mom. “Tiff, where’s my mom? Do you see her?... Do you mind going and getting her?” I asked. “Sure, is something wrong?” she looked concerned at this point. “I’m not really sure” is all I could muster out.

As Tiff went to go get my mom I felt like a million years were going by.. Watching everyone skate super slow, so slow that the colors that they were made up of just kind of blurred together, yet all of the noises were sped up and warped.
“Megan, what’s wrong?” my mom asked rushing over. “I don’t know mom.. My legs hurt and my head feels funny.” I said.

Before I knew it I was limping out the door and waving to bye to my best friend. We were supposed to have a sleep over that night, but since nobody knew what was going on with me I was taken straight home and told I was probably coming down with the flu. The flu? I didn’t feel like I had the flu, but at the same time I didn’t feel “right” either.

“You’re home early” my dad says as we walked in. I immediately limped my way up the stairs and into my brother’s room. He was watching some movie and I figured since the rest of my night was going to suck I might as well watch whatever he was. I proceeded to lay down on his bed while he sat across the room fiddling with some papers. It was then that I remembered I had some Valentine’s candy leftover from school downstairs in my back pack. “Well that might make my night a little less sucky” I thought.

It all happened so quickly. One minute I was getting up to get my box of candy hearts and the next minute I was face down on the floor of my brother’s room. I had attempted to get out of his bed, but what I soon found out is that when your legs don’t work, you don’t stand up, instead, you fall. I think that was when I realized my legs weren’t working… It took me a minute to process what had just happened since my mind was all over the place tonight. “Ant! Get mom. I can’t move my legs!” I yelled. “Seriously?” asked Ant. “No, I just love smelling the carpet in your room. YES. MOM!!!!!”


1997 : Pediatrician


Being carried into the doctor’s office at 7 years old is always an awkward experience. All of the other kids and mom’s look at you like you’re diseased. Yeah yeah, I know what they’re all thinking.. “Either she’s so sick she can’t walk or she’s just really lazy.”

Doctor Brooks, my doctor, wasn’t in today. I was going to see someone filling in for him… Doctor Fitzgerald or something like that. Doctor Fitzgerald was a man looking to be somewhere in his 30’s. He was tall and had sandy brown hair with no facial hair present. He smiled at me strangely and without saying a word examined me. “So what’s going on?” he finally asked. “I can’t move my legs” I said as I thought it was as obvious as daylight. “And why can’t you move your legs?” he asked. Doctor Fitzgerald.. Please explain to me how you became a doctor? Because you’re asking the dumbest questions I’ve heard all week. If I knew the answers to these questions, I sure as heck wouldn’t have come to see you, now would I? No, I never said that.. But I’m pretty sure my mom and I were both thinking something along the same lines.
That doctor’s visit ended in disaster. I went home with a prescription for over the counter Tylenol. WOW. Sounds like we’ve really got it figured out here. I even had a few x-rays done on my legs to make sure they weren’t broken. Sure enough, as everyone suspected, my legs were fine.

So what was my diagnosis you ask? Acid reflux again? Well, this time, I didn’t get one. I had a “Maybe you should come back when Dr. Brooks is back in office.”