Picture taken in year 2005 at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center over  10 years later after stroke.

It was one of those cold days in hell and no snow on the frozen grounds.   All of this don't matter because I stayed warm inside gazing outside though a window on the eighth floor of Erie County Medical Center's (ECMC) rehabilitation center in my electric wheelchair looking at a outdoor basketball court.  I could be found at that window of dreams before and  between therapy workouts.  Before a therapy workout, I jump started a game of basketball at the court and the game ended at halftime because it's time to go to therapy.  Therapy ended so I get to go to the window to start the second half of my basketball game, after lunch and before another workout.  With a stomach full of hospital food and medicine, the wheelchair banged the hallway walls of the hospital as I drove to the window of dreams to start the second half of the basketball game. 

With the second half  underway,  the score was 36 to 34 and my team was loosing but I had 30 of those points.  My team would of been winning and I would of had more points but I must dream on.  There was 0 seconds left on the clock with the game tied at  111 and a sold out crowd of 10,000 went wild as a horn sounded to mark the end of game and at the same time the referee blew his whistle to call a fowl.  The fowl was called on the guy guarding me on a line drive lay up that would of went in win but the my opponent tackled me at the sound of the buzzer .  I had an astonishing 88 points.  The swet poured out my body as I walked to the fowl line to take a free throw.  Parts of the crowd of 10,000 screamed for me to miss and at the same time drowning out the cheers for me to score to prevent the game in going into over time.  The referee handed over the ball to me as I shuffled my feet on the fowl line.  Using the back of my hand to wipe away the swet dripping down my forehead;  before I gave the a couple of bounces while pondering the deciding shot.  The crowd cheered louder as I raised the ball over my head to shoot my free throw.  Releasing the ball towards the basket, the crowd gave their last Hera in hopes for a miss.  Like a lighting bug floating on a hot summer night breeze, the ball connected to the basketball hoop.  You couldn't ere a pin drop in front of this now silenced sold out crowd as the ball rolled around the rim three times.  The ball seemed to pick up speed on the second rolled around to the third trip.  The third trip around came to a halt, as the unfinished roll around the ball pulled away from the hoop hitting the back board, bouncing off it finally makes the winning point.

This kind of imagination kept me out of the nut house for a long drawn five month stay at a rehabilitation for TBI victims.  I was among young victims of stabbings, shootings and car related accidents.  Their were quadriplegics, paraplegics, people who were to weak after an accident and a verity of different strokes.  My last day of rehabilitation I was told I reach my goals in improvements and can't get any better.  This kind of information was hard for me to believe because this doctor with all the medicine in the world couldn't heal the determination I had to beat the odds.  

AUTHORS NOTE-  When I left ECMC, I still could not talk, walk, move my arms, turn my head and look you in the eyes.  The first five years of being home with my no quit attitude, today  I feed myself, drink, brush my teeth and work a computer.  All those accomplishments, I work my right arm gaining strength and also I can move my my neck to the right so I t look at square in eyes with glasses  and say "HELLO.".  There only statistics that told me I must quit.  Don't believe in statistics, but have faith in yourself and work on the strengths you have not the ones that were lost. That faith is not a miracle but a unseen believe that gets stronger in time and it feeds off the strength you gain, so don't quit.

My first day and night at ECMC was a shocker.  The attitude in caring was a very different from what was received in the ICU at the Millard Fillmore Gates hospital.  I was put in a room with six other patience's that carried on conversations while feeding themselves their hospital dinner.  Eventually, I got in a room with an extra empty bed.  That empty bed was occupied by three different patients during my stay.  The most interesting room mate I had is an alcoholic and his doctor ordered he get a beer a day.  I had a frequent visitor that was in the hospital long before me and got around in a wheelchair. he was assigned a fake name because doctors learned he was marked for death by local thugs and his life was attempted upon by a visiting gun man.

My therapy ran Monday through Friday for five months straight with weekends off.  I did get passes to go home and celebrated my 29th birthday in March at a nearby concert hall seeing Joe Cocker.  The other pass allowed me to have Christmas of 94 in the comforts of my own home.  I slept in the separate bedroom that departed my wife and I in different areas of our home.  This was my first pass out of the hospital since October and I made my entrance using my temporary built wheelchair ramp.  My Christmas at home was a member able one because I received a first class spoil.  I got my very own freshly remodeled bedroom with a 25-inch remote television on a wall mounted swivel stand and it was fully installed with cable.  My neck that was stuck looking left was now able to turn straight but for minutes at a time.  The first day of therapy the neck muscles were being strengthen so that I can turn my head.  All the muscles it took to feed myself did not work so I was fed by some one else.  This was extremely hard to deal with the fact of having to be fed by nurses.  Especially, when you could not move or make a verbal noise to get their attention away from the TV.   There was a male nurse that helped himself to my meals and he must of loved yogurt because when ever I ordered it and when he fed me: he would gulp it down.

My time here at ECMC was work, work, work .  Everyday just waking up to do because it was work just to open up my eye lids,  I lay in bed till breakfast came between 8am-9am and in hopes nurses were not to busy to feed me, I missed a lot of breakfast because of this fact.   Waking up at 7am and while waiting for breakfast (If I got it) my doctor with his student doctors drilled me with yes/no questions.  After breakfast, It was bath time; learning things like don't use soap to wash my face.  Why?  Because some mornings were so hectic, the person that bathed forgot to rinse soap off my face.   After I'm all dressed it was the next persons turn for a bath.  The person was racing against time so I lay there in my bed unable to wiggle myself to get comfortable and since I could not cover myself with my blanket I froze my butt off until a crew of four pranced in the room to put me in my wheelchair getting me ready for the day.

AUTHORS NOTE-  I was put in several manufactures wheelchairs hoping I choose their wheelchair.  My first wheelchair was a regular hospital push chair with a tall back.  When I finished the first session of therapy, I was wheeled back to my room in front of my room door.  This wheelchair was the most uncomfortable chair I ever sat in. I was told someone will put me in bed until it was time for therapy.  This never happened at any day so tears poured out of my eyes because my butt was in so much agonizing pain from not being able to readjust my butt after sitting on it for so long.  I was fitted in several different electric wheelchairs because right arm became just mobile enough to operate one and operate a switch that tilted seat back to shift my body weight off butt.

After getting situated into the wheelchair, my speech therapist came to my room to  worked on me.