Courage

When I first met Lyn, he was a fourteen year old quadriplegic living in a long-term care hospital. At the young age of seven, he was hit by a truck while riding his bicycle. Lyn was not expected to live. The accident had severed his spinal cord in half. Though the odds were against him, he somehow found the courage and will to live the life that was suddenly handed to him.
As we walked through the hallway of the hospital, I noticed this funny look on my daughter’s face. Her nose was wrinkled up, lips puckered like she had just taken a bite out of a lemon.
“What’s that smell?” Natasha asked.
“It’s the disinfectant the hospital uses to destroy all the germs,” I replied.
“It smells awful,” she said, her face still wrinkled up. My son Tim looked around, not wanting to be there but knowing his grandmother wanted him and his sister to meet Lyn.
When we approached the door to Lyns’ room, we could hear voices. One was squeaky and hard to understand, the other voice was normal. Tim looked at me with a surprised look as he asked, “Is he watching cartoons?”
“It sounds like he’s watching Donald Duck!” He exclaimed.
“I don’t know”, I said. Why don’t we go in and see.
As we walked into the room, we noticed the television was not on. My kids looked at me questioningly. There on the bed lay a boy hooked up to odd-looking machines. A nurse was by his side taking his blood pressure and by the look on his face, he was not enjoying it. They were the voices we heard. The voice sounding like Donald Duck was Lyn. “He talks like that because of a tube, called a ‘trachea’ in his throat to help him,” I told my kids. “He keeps it covered with a scarf around his neck,” I said, as they looked at me with wonder in their eyes.
Tim and Natasha looked around the room in awe. There were bikini-clad girl posters on the ceiling right above the bed. A big television with a VCR was attached at the end of the bed. A model airplane also hung from the ceiling. A second shelf held a policeman’s hat, fireman’s hat and a flight helmet from an Air force pilot. We later found out that Lyn was an honorary policeman and fireman.
When Lyn noticed us standing by the door admiring his room, he broke out in the biggest smile I had ever seen. In his Donald Duck voice, he said, “Hi.” With a twinkle in his eye and a mischievious grin , he motioned for the nurse with a tilt of his head.
“Water,” he said in that squeaky voice. The nurse turned to the cabinet behind her while I introduced my kids. When the nurse turned back around, she held a one-inch round syringe (without a needle) full of water that she put in Lyns’ mouth. The next thing we knew we had water all over our faces. Lyn had somehow used his mouth to squirt water out of the syringe. He was laughing as he said, “Nice to meet you.” Tim and Natasha stood there with water dripping down the front of them, not knowing what to say or do. After a few moments, they wiped the water off and when what happened had sunk in, they started laughing. The nurse handed each of them a syringe and the three of them had a water fight there in the room.
While the nurse readied Lyn for his wheelchair, we went down to the visitors’ lounge to wait for him. A few minutes later, there was a commotion down the hall. People were shouting, and there were sirens. I remember thinking, “Something is terribly wrong.”
As we turned around, someone yelled “Look out, here comes trouble!”
We had just enough time to move out of the way as Lyn came barreling down the hall in his wheelchair. He was controlling the chair with a special mouthpiece, and by moving his head in different positions, he could control which direction he wanted to go. On the front of the chair were cardboard pieces attached and painted like a police car, complete with sirens. He started chasing Natasha around the room as she squealed in delight.
She looked back at Lyn and said, “You can’t catch me, ha ha ha ha ,” as she ran in to the girls restroom. Lyn followed her to the door and sat there waiting, being as quiet as a mouse. When she finally peeked out, she was not expecting him to be sitting there and she just about jumped out of her shoes. We came to find out that this was one of Lyn’s favorite games to play, not only with his visitors but also the hospital staff.
Lyn was very well-liked by the staff and constantly gave them a hard time. He also had full run of the hospital. Lyn was a computer wiz and did computer work for the hospital. He learned to paint, doing all of this with mouth controls and special devices.
Through all his accomplishments, I feel he taught my children the true meaning of the word “Courage.” He found ways to turn his life in to something positive and rewarding for anyone blessed with knowing him.
Lyn was twenty one that day we went to visit him, and was expected to live the rest of his life in the hospital. He passed away a few months later. I am very glad that I was able to know him for the short time that I did.