Tonight was our Stake Youth Fireside, which is held twice a year. The speaker was a young man who had been paralyzed in a car accident from the chest down and is confined to a wheelchair. He talked about what had happened in his life that led up to the accident. He grew up in a fairly rural area. The kids his age who were closest to him (geographically) were not Church members. He did have friends who were Church members but they didn't live close by. These non-LDS friends got him involved in drugs and alcohol. The car accident happened one night when he was in high school. He and his "friends" had been out clubbing and dancing. The car he was riding in was a BMW. They were at a stoplight and another sports car pulled up next to them. The drivers started racing. They went around a curve and one car clipped the other, causing a terrible accident.
I am so grateful I can walk. One of my earliest memories is of being unable to walk well after being sick with spinal meningitis, which is what caused me to become deaf. I don't know this for sure but I wonder if it's because the fluid balance in my ears was disturbed, or if not being able to hear somehow affected my balance. I don't remember it affecting me for very long.
The Writer also had spinal meningitis but the effects were much more severe. Besides being deaf, his leg bones and joints were affected. He wore leg braces for a few years, and he's had surgeries on his hips several times. When we first met, he was dealing with losing cartilage in his hip joints. At that time, he had a limp that became fairly pronounced over time. In October 2004 he had one hip joint replaced with an artificial joint. In February 2006, he had the other one replaced. Before the replacement surgeries, winter was a terrible time for him. The cold weather made his hips ache so badly that walking caused great pain. He couldn't exert himself physically for too long because that also caused great pain. Since the surgeries, he has been able to do so many things he couldn't do before. We took a trip with CM and JJ to Disneyland in 2007. We spent 3 days walking all over the park. He got tired, yes, but he didn't hurt. His stride is better, and his general health is better. I am so grateful that he has regained his mobility. If he hadn't had the surgeries when he did, I'm sure he would be wheelchair bound by now.
Being able to walk isn't something to take for granted. I am grateful for my mobility.
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