Overcoming Adversity

By Michael Litzie
Staff Writer

Everyone’s had an experience that has changed their life forever. Some experiences could have bettered your life, but some could have become an obstacle to forever overcome. When I was only two years old I was struck with an experience that became an obstacle that I am still fighting to overcome.

On one regular summer day, my brother, father and I decided to take a ride in my father’s truck over to my uncle’s house where my father was going to help him fix something. With my father and uncle preoccupied, my six year old brother and I took it upon ourselves to find some source of entertainment. Looking around I’d seen my brother had climbed into the back of my father’s pick-up truck and began playing on this old broken down bicycle. Feeling left out, I wanted in on the action and climbed my little two year old body up there. Now it begins to get kind of fuzzy to recall what had happened next, but I remember sitting on the side of the truck, leaning over and bam lights out. The last thing I seen before I blacked out was my elbow sticking out the skin starring me straight in the eyes. From there I remember waking up scared to death on this rock solid board in the back of an ambulance.

Now you would think everything was going to be okay since I was in the care of Bridgeport Hospital but that couldn’t be more wrong than two plus two equaling ten. After the surgery and sometime into the intense therapy my parents had realized that I was making no progress and my elbow would not open past a ninety degree angle. This is where the real problems began to occur. Going back in for x-rays my doctor notice the bones were growing back together wrong due to a mess up in surgery. I was rushed to Yale New Haven hospital to undergo more intense surgery, but for the first time from a doctor that knew what he was doing.

A year past and I was in the first grade when another catastrophic event happened. I began to get extremely sick and my left arm turned completely red and started forming these little bumps everywhere. The metal pins used to hold the bone in place had a negative reaction with my body and caused a nasty infection, where I needed extreme treatment. What my doctor needed to do was run a tube through my chest and into my heart to pump medicine through my veins to reach my elbow. Seeming easy enough they decided to do it the strangest way, while I was awake. This I recall clear as day; being held down by five nurses and my mother, while they tried to run a tube into my chest. Of course I did not let this happen and the nurse’s hand that was trying to hold my head down has my bit scar to prove it. After twenty minutes of this circus they finally decided to put me asleep.

After a few months of treatment I was finally cured of the bone infection. I was beginning the second grade and I did everything in the world to make sure this injury didn’t hold me back from anything. For the remainder of grade school I played recreational basketball and little league baseball. For four years straight my basketball team never lost a game and for four years straight I made every baseball all-star team as a pitcher/shortstop. Thinking back these accomplishments I realize how amazing it is to have overcome such extremities. However, my elbow today is only getting worse. The degree to which I can open it is dramatically dropping. A normal arm extends to a hundred and eighty degrees but I can only extend mine to about a hundred and twenty degrees. By the time I reach about thirty-five years old I more than likely will need an elbow replacement. Trying to not let it affect me, I am gaining in knowledge what I lack in arm extension. You have to play the cards that god dealt to the best of your ability and no matter what obstacles stand in your future learning to overcome them will make you a stronger person.