Meningitis: A Survivor's Story (c) 2007

Meningitis:  A Survivor’s Story and Journey of Faith – the True Life Story of Mark C. Fearing © 2011 by Mark C. Fearing

The author can be contacted at:  [e-mail]

i.          ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

         My father, Joseph L. Fearing III, has always been supportive, even (and especially) after my illness, telling me that I only need my brain and my heart to make my place in the world.

         My mother, Margaret M. (“Peggy”) Fearing, has also been a Godsend, helping me with setting up my medications and assisting me with things like check writing, all delivered with a loving touch, so that I can remain productive.

         Fritz U. Schwalm IV has been a true loyal friend, and has helped organize benefit concerts for me in the past.  The son of two first generation German immigrants, he now takes me out in my special handicap-accessible van every other week for “ein bier oder zwei.”  He is the water quality officer for the City of Denton. 

         He is a great father of two children, FritzL and Gioia, by his wife, Lynn Luck, and is a fine guitarist and singer, and I have been fortunate to see him develop as a musician with his band Uver.
   
         Gary Wood, a counselor at Calhoun Middle School and fellow member of Trinity Presbyterian Church of Denton, Texas, has proven to be a good “sounding board” and source of strength to me and is so much more than just a “coffee buddy.

         Pat Cheek and Jim Clark and Ann and Prentice Barnett, also of Trinity, had useful comments on a working document of this work

         Indeed, I owe a debt of gratitude to all the members of Trinity Presbyterian Church and the many others who prayed for me in my time of need.  And a new “flock” of folks that has joined since my illness, and they have been great at accepting me as one of their own, bringing their young families with them; this group is the core of the church’s “Young(ish) Adults Group,” of which I’m a member.

         My brother-in-law Larry McGehee, eased many of my fears in a letter he wrote to me while I was in Burwood Rehabilitation Hospital in Christchurch, New Zealand:

         Hey Scarf!  [a nickname bestowed upon me because of my voracious appetite].  This is your brother-in-law. Larry.  Man, words cannot describe how I feel about what has happened to you.  I just hope are taking it well (or as well as is possible).  I’m sure you’ll overcome this setback, though.  You thrive on challenges.  I’ll never forget that afternoon at the Ale House [a Houston pub I frequented during my time in graduate school at the University of Houston] when you humbled me at darts, relieving me of my hard-earned cash by hitting two double bull’s eyes!  I hope that you can take this as another challenge, something else to rise above.  Now life has dealt you a crummy hand, but you have to play the hand you’re dealt.  If anyone can do it, Mark, it’s you.  I have faith in you.  Nobody can say why this happened to you, but when life gives you lemons, you have to squeeze them and make lemonade.  I don’t care if you have to squeeze them with your butt cheeks, just squeeze them!

         Special thanks are due to my siblings:  Marilyn, Jan (or J.J. to family), Kim, and Scott, who read and proofed earlier versions of this work.  Their valuable comments make this work better than it would have been without their input.

         Special thanks are also owed to Charles Martin of the University of North Texas for his many insightful comments on this project as it reached “critical mass.”

         And, of course, I give all the glory to God, who saw fit to spare me from this horrible disease.  A faith-filled life is a work-in-progress and is never dull, but having a moral anchor helps one to weather the bumps on life’s road.
 
CHAPTER ONE:  THE EARLY YEARS

         I was born in Paradise – Greeley, Colorado – on August 21st, 1963.  It was only Paradise, mind you, when the prevailing winds were kind and NOT from the direction of the many feed lots that dotted the surrounding countryside.

         I was then uprooted and moved to Houston where I lived for the first five years of my life. Dad took a faculty job at the University of Houston, where I’d later earn my MBA and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior-Management. Our family was Christian (Presbyterian), and I had been baptized in the Presbyterian Church before we left Colorado.

         Ours was a loving home, with my parents and siblings (Three sisters: Marilyn, Jan [or J.J.] and Kim and one brother, Scott) spoiling me and teasing me, good-naturedly, most of the time.

         On my fifth birthday, we moved to Denton, TX, a Paradise in its own right, so my father could join the Educational Foundations faculty of Texas Woman’s University (TWU), and our family moved into a spacious three-bedroom house on Roberts Street near campus, off of Bell Avenue.  All of us kids were educated in Denton schools and graduated from Denton High School, and Marilyn, Scott, and I also graduated from the University of North Texas (UNT) right here in town. I earned a BA in psychology in 1985, with Magna cum Laude honors. Kim went to TWU for her degree in special education.

         While I was in college at UNT, I worked for Bruce Foster, who was a physics professor at North Texas and family friend, who hired me on the spot to teach in their astronomy laboratories.  Not wanting to challenge him, I accepted the job on the spot, never having discussed salary.  Jokingly, he reported this to Dad, saying, “What kind of son are you raising here, Joe?  We never discussed pay.”

         Finding it hard to find employment in my chosen field of psychology (a BA basically only gives one the right to go to graduate school), I decided to pursue a doctorate in the related field of Organizational Behavior (OB), at the urging of my North Texas mentor, Dr. Douglas Johnson, and my soon-to-be Houston one, Dr. Art Jago, who actively recruited me into the program. 

         My experience at the University of Houston was great, with imminently qualified instructors, and even included a stint working at a management-training center in a newly-democratic Budapest, Hungary in 1990.

         During my days as an adjunct professor at UH-Downtown, I met a lovely blonde student named Julie Johnson, who was in my Business Policy-Strategy class.  She had it all – brains, great smile, good figure.  Luckily for me, the attraction was mutual, and we started dating after final grades were turned in so there would be no conflict of interest. 

         When we met, however, the timing couldn’t have been worse, as I was expected down-under to begin my duties as a Lecturer of Management at an obscure agricultural school called Lincoln University near Christchurch on the South Island of New Zealand, in January 1994.

         A man with a kiwi accent had called and introduced himself as Ralph Lattimore, Professor of Economics at Lincoln, with whom I had interviewed at that year’s Academy of Management Conference.  He went on to say that the university was willing to fly me down so I could “suss” things at Lincoln University firsthand.  My friend Dave Dean had taken a job there and loved it.  Now I had to choose between Julie and the job.  Or did I?

         Never wanting to settle for less, I asked Julie to marry me at the Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas, when I came home to visit briefly for an academic meeting in Canada in 1994, and she made me ecstatic when she said yes; we carried on our courtship over the phone and e-mail, but we wanted to be together, of course.
 
CHAPTER TWO:  CANTERBURY AT LAST!

         I was fortunate enough to land the job in Canterbury, New Zealand, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been.  A tourist destination for many, Christchurch was my place of employment and very much my new home.  I was to teach management “papers” (subjects) to undergraduate students at Lincoln University, an agriculture school in the province of Canterbury.  I felt at home at Lincoln and fit into the Lincoln “family.”  I had found my “New Eden.”

         For exercise, I took up the sport of snowboarding and bought a season pass to Porter Heights, a ski field only an hour’s drive from Christchurch.  To save wear and tear on my vehicle, I would often take a shuttle operated by fellow “shredder” (snowboarder) Lloyd Dungey, who became a good mate of mine.

         It was a good life, living and working in New Zealand, a country that’s thoroughly modern, and clean, but was fiercely hanging onto its agrarian roots, as evidenced in the frequent sheep crossings on my way to work each morning on my Harley-Davidson “Iron Head” Sportster motorbike.

         How great I had it there.  What on Earth could go wrong?


 
CHAPTER THREE:  STORM CLOUDS GATHER – Enter Meningitis

         I somehow managed to contract meningococcemia, an often-deadly form of blood-borne virus that initially masquerades as influenza and can be caught any way the common cold can; I was infected either when I was on the North Island on business, interviewing folks for a cross-cultural study of leadership, the GLOBE study of leadership effectiveness, or immediately upon my return. 

         We’ll never know exactly how I got meningitis, either, because it spreads any way a common cold does:  Sharing utensils or drinking vessels, kissing, or even being in close proximity with a carrier, who may not even exhibit symptom: fever, nausea, acute sensitivity to light, and a stiff neck – all of which I exhibited before turning in for the night on September 22nd.

         I roused my flatmate, Jeff Heyl, another business lecturer at Lincoln, at 3:00 a.m. on a warm September morning, the 23rd, springtime down-under, with those same flu-like symptoms.  I’d had the flu earlier and thought it was just a relapse.  It wasn’t, and little did I know my world was about to be turned upside-down.

         My health had been excellent up to that point and that is probably one of the reasons why I survived the infections brought on by the disease.  Health care experts have    told me I probably wouldn’t have survived the disease had my health not been as good before undergoing the stress caused by the meningitis. 

         I lay in an induced coma for fifty-three days; they put me under so my body’s immune system could more easily rally against the disease and minimize the trauma caused by amputating all four of my limbs one by one, which had to be done, as gangrene had set in. 

         During the time I was in a coma, I experienced renal failure, and I also suffered mild “watershed” prefrontal brain damage (the capillaries in that part of my brain had restricted blood flow for an unknown period of time) and this has affected my judgment and reasoning somewhat.

         At some point in my hospitalization, I also suffered a stroke, which has impeded the movement of my right leg significantly.  This, along with the tissue-paper thinness of the skin on my legs, which have skin grafts to cover areas eaten away by the disease, has made ambulation a near-impossibility.          

Upon awakening from the coma, I knew immediately something was very wrong, as waves of pain surged through my body, and I tried to see my arms and legs, now missing.  I also noticed something was dreadfully wrong with my hearing:  The meningitis had left me “profoundly” deaf, and I now wear hearing aids in both ears so that I can converse normally with people.



CHAPTER FOUR:  BURWOOD REHABILITATION HOSPITAL

         From Christchurch Public, I moved, in 1996, to Burwood Rehabilitation Hospital, a much better place for my needs as I rehabilitated by virtue of its meeting the individualized needs of brain injury patients.  The Burwood community was a fun place to be, largely due to the presence of a raven-haired male nurse named John-Paul Fricke.  We had protracted discussions on Christianity, our beliefs, and life in general.

         John-Paul was lanky, but quite strong and had served on an ambulance crew years ago and was naturally skilled at calming people down – a valuable skill in his present position at Burwood.

         My rehabilitation involved Speech-Language Therapy with a kindly middle-aged lady named Vivienne Mulgrew, Computer Therapy with an Englishman named Ron, and Group Therapy with a variety of people.  At this point, I couldn’t read because words would just “swim” on a printed page, but eventually, with supreme patience and practice, I regained my concentration and began reading books by survivors (e.g., Survive the Savage Sea,  Into Thin Air) – as I share a common bond with them.  Reading is a vital activity to brain injury rehabilitation for those folks that can read.

         The other patients were also brain injury patients at varying levels of recovery and mostly kept to themselves, except for group activities.  There was Brian, who kept uttering nonsense quite loudly, and Patrick, his unfortunate roommate, in the section of the ward next to mine, who would periodically tell him to shut up.  It was like a scene from a mental hospital and was quite surreal.

         I learned that once an individual sustains such trauma, his or her brain heals very slowly and is never quite the same as before the injury; thus, the support of family and friends is critical while the healing is taking place – which I both had and continue to have, fortunately.

         During this time, my fiancée Julie was living in the Christchurch suburb of Belfast and working for Air New Zealand, driving my Honda Accord to work and to Burwood daily.

         My parents both visited me at Burwood – each of them separately – staying with Julie in Belfast during their visits.  Dad brought with him a white pillowcase signed by all my friends at Trinity Presbyterian in Denton.  It was comforting knowing I hadn’t been forgotten by the folks back home.


CHAPTER FIVE:  HOUSTON (AGAIN!)

         My first stop after getting off the plane in Houston was the world-famous Institute for Rehabilitation & Research (TIRR) in the Medical Center area.  It was here that I would gain important knowledge and skills for use in my radically-changed life.  A rehabilitation specialist named Skip Maier, whose specialty was multiple amputations, had evaluated me for admission to TIRR in New Zealand and made recommendations as to treatment.

         Though I was satisfied as a whole with my rehabilitation in New Zealand, I wanted to see how much further I could go with “state of the art” rehabilitation methods and technologies, as all the world looks on with envy at the United States.  In fact, most New Zealand hospitals are staffed with experts trained in the U.S. or the UK.

         At TIRR, I learned daily life skills such as putting on (donning) and taking off (doffing) my new prosthetic arms, which were custom-built by Muilenberg Prosthetics, Inc. of Houston.  I still wear these arms on occasion, though they could easily pass for relics in a museum!

         My primary therapists at TIRR were Todd Novak, O.T., Armand Villanueve, O.T., and Heather Faunce, P.T.  An African-American bilateral arm amputee named Floyd Grays, a volunteer, took me under his wing and taught me quite a bit; there’s no better teacher than one who’s been through the same things you’re going through.

         I learned all about using my prosthetics at TIRR, through a daily regimen of exercises comprising everything from grueling physical therapy to quite interesting occupational therapy, in which I learned alternative methods for doing Activities of Daily Living (ADLs).

         While in Houston, I also worked part-time for a consulting firm, Holland & Davis, LLC that I had worked for before my stint in New Zealand, and I appreciated the chance to work in my chosen field, even with my impairments.
 
CHAPTER SIX:  HOME AGAIN, HOME AGAIN

         At Julie’s strong urging, I then moved back to Denton, TX, so I could be close to my family – my parents, now in their eighties, and my local sisters, Marilyn and Kim, and their families.  My other one, J.J., now lives in Ft. Collins, Colorado, with her professor husband, Reagan Waskom, III.   

         Initially, I was going to rehabilitative therapy at Flow Hospital and living at our Roberts St. home with my parents, but I soon wore them out, as they were doing direct care 24/7, with the aid of a professional caregiver, Carol Putnam, who came in every morning.

         We looked into the option of assisted living and I moved into Park Place, where all essential living functions like laundry and cooking were done for me, and it wasn’t a bad place to live, temporarily. But I felt as though I was stagnating so I looked for another place to live and possibly even rehabilitate myself. 

         My search led me to Denton Rehabilitation & Nursing Center (DRNC), where I learned to make transfers from my wheelchair to elevated mats using my prosthetic legs, made by Muilenberg Prosthetics, Inc. in Houston.

         My ongoing battle with clinical depression has been problematic in the past, but I now take medicine three times a day for my depression and see a counselor, Dr. Kathy DeOrnellas, who helps me organize my life with cognitive therapy, a way to make positive things happen in my life through rational thought processes. 

         Positive events in my life have more a more profound effect over my moods than pills could ever have, I’ve noticed:  Daily tasks, such as keeping a journal, which my sister Kim started me doing in 2007, seems to mellow me out and help me keep my life in perspective, thus easing my depression, too.

         It was while I was in DRNC that I heard about some duplex homes for the disabled being built a block away from the nursing home, and they had a number of features that made them appropriate for the handicapped – roll-in showers, lowered cabinets and blinds, and other wheelchair-friendly features.

         We put my name on a waiting list and, when the time came, I went around the corner to inspect the units.  I picked out the best one of four:  in the back, with a wooden deck behind it, and registered my choice with Denton Affordable Housing Corporation (DAHC), the company that built them.

         We retained the services of Ms. Geri Sams, owner of Geri-Options, which specializes in geriatric healthcare, but took a special interest in my case.  My new duplex home would likely offer me the best chance for independence again, though I realize I’ll probably rely on others for some things.

         Striving for more independence led me to engaging in home-based occupational therapy with Denton therapist Paul Boutwell in 2009 and 2010, in which I tried my hand at cooking a few dishes that came out remarkably well, giving me confidence in the kitchen – a realm I have always enjoyed and can still master to some degree, with minimal assistance.

         In 2002, a professional caregiver, Kirk Watson, was then hired to give me care throughout the care at night, from 7:00p.m. to 6:30a.m., and a few caregivers have worked the day shift, from 7:30a.m.-4:00p.m., but the current one, hired in February 2007, is Phil "Bubba" Parsons.  I continue with my interest in the sport of soccer by volunteering at coaching the middle school team at Selwyn private school.  I started there in 2006.

         My writing pursuits have been focused on primarily on the web and Internet, as I currently I am a frequent contributor on Irodalom, an international literary forum administered by folks in Budapest, Hungary.  They have published chapters of my novella, Magyarorszag Memories, some short stories, and a few of my poems.

         I also stay active at Trinity Presbyterian Church, participating in the Young(ish) Adults group there, as without us, there is no future for the church.  As the son of Charter Members since the 1960s, I feel it only fitting to carry on our tradition as part of a good Christian family.  Life is good!


CHAPTER SEVEN:    THE ROAD AHEAD AND SOME OBSERVATIONS

         It may sound as if I have beaten insurmountable odds in surviving the illness as I did, but ultimately it was God’s will that I survived, and for that reason I have made it my mission to live each day as though it were my last and truly enjoy my life and use my talents to make my own life and other people’s lives better. 

         This includes my family, friends, and caregivers, who are at this point probably more like fraternity brothers to any outside observer.  In my role as their boss, I have to show compassion, and balance my needs with theirs, and realize there is no simple formula to do it for me.

         Having been so close to death has given me a deeper appreciation of all the things that make life worth living:  Beautiful sunsets, summer thunderstorms, laughter, and music are rich reminders of what I’d be missing if I were gone.  I pray, meditate, and read for pleasure more than I ever did before and enjoy baseball and soccer games on TV, too, as sports have long been a passion of mine.

         My former fiancée, Julie married an old friend, Gabe Hinahosa and together they had two beautiful children, a boy and a girl, and every so often we contact each other via e-mail; I still hear from her social worker mother Myra Johnson, too on occasion, and their family has blessed me in countless ways, and I am grateful to have been the recipient of their kindness.

         I look forward to growing older, and hopefully wiser, and my nieces and nephews are my children, too.  I’m blessed beyond measure, and I await the dawn of each new day with optimism and passion.

Meningitis:  A Survivor’s Story and Journey of Faith – the True Life Story of Mark C. Fearing © 2011 by Mark C. Fearing