While competitive with everything my entire childhood, the fire within came in full shortly after being rushed to an emergency room in Bethlehem, PA. I was misdiagnosed by the campus medical personnel and was told I had a virus. That night the high fevers raged on and we had to call 911. It was bacterial meningitis. In the back of the ambulance and not knowing what was happening except that I was weak, lost my vision and could not walk, all I could think of was if my family knew what was happening.
During the next 4 weeks, last rites being read at one point, talk of extremity amputation and even the loss of ambulation, I remember that my brain kept telling me to forge forward. I was visited by my entire fraternity house and further encouraged. When the physician told me that possibility of walking again was slim, I immediately asked for the walker and to get out of bed. I walked again.
After that hospital stay, I had to learn had to do many things in my life a second time. I also had to learn to do whatever necessary so it never happened again. I spent months being in fear of dying and trying to experience things just in case it came again. Somewhere along the line, that fire that burned as child in competition was scorching higher to succeed in everything, to keep moving forward, that I had to embrace the negative experiences and learn from them, but never let them hold me back. I learned that I can either wait for the light at the end of the tunnel, or light that tunnel up myself. And so the fire blazes on... because that would not be my first encounter with a life or death situation.
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