My Neck Into My Lower Back example essay topic

Lying helpless on the ground is a humbling experience. It was hot that day, a dry heat. Texas summers are brutal, not knowing the exact moment when your body shuts down from dehydration. It was one of the worst summers, with temperatures in the lower hundreds.

The grass was dead and the ground was hard and rocky, perfect to dive on. Playing soccer in Texas is odd; the weather is too cold or too hot. The only colors that stood out on the field were the dark blues and blacks of jerseys in a sea of brown. Being a goalkeeper, I have most of the responsibility to keep the team organized, if I fail at that job, it costs a goal. I started to cry from the pain, and blacked out. Breaking my neck definitely changed my perception of life.

We were already losing, and I was close to dehydration myself. My coaches, Kerri and Jerry, were yelling at my defenders to pick it up. I repeated it at the top of my lungs when I had to make sprawling save for the upper corner of the goal. As I threw the ball back into play, I yelled at Sean, my not-so-bright sweeper, with fiery words that would make a sailor blush. I bent down putting my hands on my knees in a futile effort to regain my sense of time and space. I was dehydrated.

I looked around, desperately trying to find a yellow shirt. Everything was blurry, but I could make it out. "Hey, Mr. Official! How much time is left?" I yelled. He threw two hands up with five fingers on one, and two on the other.

I could do this; there is only seven minutes to go in the half. I sucked it up, and started to concentrate on the ball and where it might go next. To my dismay, two forwards had moved up to join the attack, and one was dribbling down the field on a break away. I sprung into action, stepping up to reduce the angle on the goal. I moved past the six-yard box, hands ready like steel traps waiting to snatch the ball out of the air.

All of a sudden, I was face to face with him. This kid was good; he faked to the left, faked to the right, and finished with a scissor move. I glanced to the left to see the second wing coming up strong. Focusing my attention on the ball, I knew the pass was going to be made, and I was damned if I would let it go in. As soon as his left foot touched the ball for the pass, I dove. Both arms extended to the fullest, hands like brick walls waiting for the save.

Perfectly timed, I tipped the ball as it came off his foot. Still in midair and moving at a great force, I hit headfirst into his thigh. When I hit, there was a loud crunch, as the impact cracked all of the cartilage in my spine and neck. A kaleidoscope of colors enveloped my vision, then blackness.

I awoke on the ground to a ball in the goal, and a celebrating team. I slowly rose, unsure of my surroundings, and picked the ball up from inside the goal. The referee blew the whistle for half. I stumbled to the sideline as the adrenaline started to wear off, and collapsed at Kari's feet. As soon as I collapsed, my legs and hands went numb, then nothing.

It felt as if there was nothing below my waist. "I... I can't feel my legs". I murmured. Kari immediately knelt down beside me. "Where does it hurt Grant?" My whole body shook as the pain shot through my neck into my lower back. Everyone crowded around me, as if I were the subject of some weird new experiment.

"Somebody call an ambulance!" Kari, yelling at the top of her lungs, was barking orders to everyone who stood around me. "Get away! Give him some air!" Everyone's voices seemed to fade farther and farther away as I slipped in and out of consciousness. Kari started asking me questions. "What day is it? Do you know where you are?" She asked with panic in her voice.

"Sun... Sunday... I think?" I spoke with hesitation; I had no idea what day it was, or where I was for that matter. I lay there wondering if I was going to be able to walk again. Sirens rang in the distance as the ambulance got closer and closer. When the paramedics got to me, I started crying again, this was not some horrible dream.

"Can you hear me?" the paramedic yelled, as he crouched over me. As the paramedics gently rolled me onto a backboard, they put a neck brace on me. After they secured me with medical tape and straps, they took my cleats off and ran the end of a ballpoint pen on the underside of foot. "Can you feel this?" he asked me. I started to cry as he tried repeatedly to get me to feel it. "I can't, I'm... scared".

He went off to the side with the other paramedic and talked softly about what to do. "We can't take him in the truck, we need an airlift. Radio, we need a chopper out here as soon as possible". When he started walking away, I started to squeeze Kari's hand as hard as I could. "We need to clear the field, the helicopter needs someplace to land!" he yelled. It was not even three minutes later that I could hear the soft sounds of a helicopter circling high above.

The paramedics, now at my side, told me that I was dehydrated, and I needed an IV. As he said that, another paramedic walked up with a pre-prepped needle and saline bag. They put it in my arm and covered it with medical tape. The intense pain localized completely in my neck and lower back numbed the sharp stick of the needle. There was an eerie calm right before the helicopter landed; the type of calm in the atmosphere right before a hurricane strikes. Then a deafening wind picked up as the helicopter touched the ground.

Chunks of grass and sticks flew up from around the landing site, flying in all directions. The paramedics loaded me up into the helicopter, and quickly locked my backboard into place. Tears ran down my face uncontrollably as we took off. One of the pilots riding in the back with me put an oxygen mask on my face, and talked to me to keep me awake. "You " re going to be fine, we " re taking you to Harris Methodist in Fort Worth!" She was yelling because of the noise that emanated from above us.

We were constantly coming in and out of air pockets that would cause a sharp decrease in altitude. Every time the helicopter hit one of these pockets, sharp pains down the center of my back ensued, causing me to writhe around on the backboard. Fifteen minutes later, we set down on the roof of Harris Methodist Medical Center. Twelve stories up, on a stretcher I thought of my life as a whole.

I started crying again, I was not happy with my life at all. If I died right now, I would not feel anything good about my life. "We have a spinal injury: possible paralysis, saline drip, twenty-five CCs morphine!" The helicopter droned out the words of the doctors. After the pilots brought the doctors up to speed, they helped transfer me to a gurney, and promptly lifted the helicopter up again for the next call. The doctors wheeled me through an endless amount of corridors and doors, and finally down twelve stories to my new home for the next ten hours, trauma room one. They lifted me quickly, but gently onto the trauma gurney, and proceeded to cut my clothes off.

They took the field IV out, and replaced it with a new one. Attaching EKG monitors to my chest, they worked diligently and were as cool as steal. After I was in a stable condition, they started doing tests; poking and prodding at me like a science experiment gone horribly wrong. "Pupils dilated, still no feeling below waist, erratic heart beat!" they were calling out my condition as if I were not there. Everything they said sounded like the worst possible scenario. "We need a specialist down here right away!" It was not until I was laying on the gurney that I realized that the pain was getting worse, and more intense.

I quickly told this fact to the first available nurse working on me; she immediately pulled a syringe out of her white coat pocket and pushed the needle into my IV tube. I immediately felt the fluid flowing into my arm, numbing every bit of pain in my body. Suddenly I got my wits about me, and started asking questions. "Am I going to be able to walk again?" I asked with such desperation that the nurse turned and could not answer me. I would have rather died right there than not been able to walk ever again.

I started going through everything I had done wrong in my life and closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable news. Then my parents were there, holding my hand. I opened my eyes, to see my mom with tears running down her face talking to me. "How you feeling Grant?" she asked, her voice made everything I was feeling melt away. I suddenly felt as if everything was going to be okay.

After eight hours on that backboard, and an uncountable number of X-Rays, the feeling finally returned to my legs. The doctors later told me that I had a compression fracture between C 2 and C 3, and a mild concussion. They finally released me after ten hours of laying on that damn backboard. I had a cute neck brace to wear for 2 weeks and several different kinds of painkillers to take. I used to live life as if I had all the time in the world. After that experience, I started to live every day as if it were my last.

I grew as a person and learned to appreciate the finer things in life. I had always wanted to study philosophy, so while I was stuck, bed-ridden for a week, I studied. I learned a lot about my self and how ashamed of my life I really was. I now live my life to the extreme; I take opportunities now I would not have taken before. I never know when I am going to die; so, why not live life to the fullest? We are but grains of salt falling through the hourglass of time.

There is nothing more humbling than truly realizing that.