by Kory Ross

Created on: August 03, 2007

I don't think there are words to describe the feelings that one feels when given a second chance at anything. Lucky, fortunate, grateful are among the ones that pop into my head, but it is more than that. A couple of years ago my own family went through a very tough situation. One that changed my family, and brought us closer.

I am the oldest of my mothers four children. She had three boys, and one girl. My brother Robert is just shy of four years younger then me. We grew up like most brothers do. We fought, and argued, and shared a room, and so on. As we grew older we grew apart. The four year age difference made a gap in our relationship, and we went about our own live.

Fast forward a little, and My brother, and I are now adults. We were room mates again, and having a blast. I was going through a divorce, and he had just split from his long time girl friend, and mother of his two girls. So we took the time to get reacquainted with each other, and spent a lot of time partying. My brother helped me get together with my current wife. Which sub sequentially helped him get with his wife (our wives are cousins). My brother, and I were like best friends.

One day he woke up with a tingling sensation in his toes. The sensation began to spread, and this worried not only Robert, but our mother as well. He sought the advice of a doctor. The doctor had just read an article on Guillian-Barre. She listened to Robert's story, and put two, and two together. Robert was rushed to the University of Iowa Hospital, and immediately checked in. By the time my wife, and I had got there he was heavily sedated. I didn't know what was really going on. Everything had happened so fast. In the confusion I had forgotten what it was they said he had, and what was going to happen to him. Guillian-Barre normally only affects the elderly. This made it hard to believe that Robert had it. He was only nineteen at the time.

You see the recovery rate for people with this is very good, but don't let that fool you. The patent still has to make it to the point of recovery. Over the next four, or five months I felt like I was stuck on a really bad roller coaster. I would receive phone calls at home, and at work. These phone calls would completely stop my world. His lungs collapsed on him twice, and had a trach tube put in so he could breath. He could not speak. He had lost all feeling from the neck down. He had a feeding tube put into his stomach. This was very hard for me. This was the little kid I used

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