So here is my drama rough draft I typed up last night (yes, and only last night). So there will be a lot of editing on my part.. definitely nowhere near perfect! As always, any suggestions are welcome.
Finding Determination Through Hope and Love
Despite battling health problems, Jim McNeile finds ways to live life to the fullest
By: Kelly Martin
After arriving back home from a trip to China in the fall of 2001, Jim McNeile had gained a lot –new friends, new experiences, and a new appreciation for life. What he was about to lose, however, would soon change his life forever. After being diagnosed with diabetes years earlier, Jim has had numerous health problems but nothing compared to the intense pain he suddenly felt in his left leg and foot. He had no choice but to see a doctor in his hometown, Elkhart, In.
As the doctor examined the situation, he didn’t have a good feeling about what probably needed to happen with Jim. Not wanting to tell him the inevitable news, the doctor stalled several times. Jim anxiously awaited; he waited so long that he eventually didn’t care what he heard – he wanted to hear something, anything.
After what seemed like days, the doctor returned back to Jim’s room with a grim face. What Jim was about to hear next would echo in his mind for the rest of his life.
“Jim, you’re going to lose your right leg,” the doctor said solemnly. “I’m sorry.”
Jim stared at him. He knew what he heard, but he couldn’t grasp it. He couldn’t accept it. “Do I have to be in a wheelchair?” Jim asked naively. The answer, as he knew, was yes.
This was only the beginning of a trying journey for both Jim and his wife Theresa. Over the last seven years, they have realized love can sometimes take work; while it is not easy, it is all worth it in the end.
Jim’s leg amputation and most of his other health problems trace back to his diabetic condition he developed in the 1980s. High blood pressure and cholesterol was something he had to live with every single day. These risk factors eventually led to him undergoing surgery for a carotid artery in 2000 which was almost completely blocked. Many of the doctors said he was lucky to be alive; Jim counted his blessings.
Shortly afterwards, in 2001, Jim was diagnosed with prostate cancer. After twenty eight days of radiation, Jim bounced back easily. He was a fighter. And once again, Jim counted his blessings.
While Jim remained hopeful and determined through these health complications, the leg amputation was something that he couldn’t quite grasp. He knew he had to lose his right leg, but did not want to face this simple fact. He suddenly didn’t feel like the same guy who survived a blocked artery and prostate cancer. His wife, Theresa, also knew she couldn’t be the same person as before - she had to be a constant care giver, something she was nervous about.
A week after the leg amputation, the doctors at Elkhart General Hospital gave him a prosthesis. The doctors warned Jim to be careful since he was an older patient, at 73, and since he was overweight.. This didn’t stop Jim from being determined to learn. When he heard their warnings, he could only laugh. “I’m not going to waste away my life!” Jim lightheartedly told them. And Jim made sure he didn’t.
Shortly after he was fitted for his prosthesis, Jim knew that he had no choice but to try to live with the circumstances. He began going to rehabilitation sessions twice a week for the next few years, with Theresa by his side. The sessions paid off; Jim eventually learned how to walk with a walker and a cane.
Theresa’s strong desire to learn also paid off - she eventually was able to help Jim get around, whether it be in a car or in their house. Watching the therapists intently at the hospital, Theresa always asked, “How is that done exactly? Could you show me again?” She was there every single day of his therapy, always ready to learn something new. Though still unsure of her class=Section2>
care taking abilities, she knew she wouldn’t know until she tried.
Jim’s motivation and determination to participate in therapy sessions eventually led to him needing rotator cuff surgery in 2002. While this surgery didn’t have the same implications as the leg amputation, Jim couldn’t help but feel slightly disappointed. He tried to help himself recover from the leg amputation only to cause another complication.
Thinking about his efforts sometimes caused him to be frustrated, confused, and just all-around tired. This would cause him to think about not only what he has went through, but also about what he has put Theresa through.
On a cool, rainy day in 2004, Jim sat in his wheelchair and stared out his window from their apartment. His thoughts started running like a steady flow of water from a faucet; they wouldn’t stop.
‘I wonder if Theresa would have married me if she knew she would have to endure all of these burdens,’ he thought to himself. To make matters worse, he felt that he, himself, was the “burden” every single day of her life.
He didn’t have much time to think about it, though - he felt a pain in his left leg that was all too familiar. He knew he had to get it examined.
On November 24, 2004, Jim was admitted once again to Elkhart General Hospital. It was time for his second leg amputation. When learning the amputation had to be above the knee, Theresa panicked. “Are you sure you have to do it above the knee? Can’t you save any of the leg below?” she frantically asked the surgeons.
“There is nothing we can do,” the surgeons told Theresa. “We have to remove his knee as well.” The operation was performed on Thanksgiving, and Jim was thankful for many things on this day - the most important being that his wife was still by side. Looking up from his hospital bed at her, he suddenly knew the answer to his question about his wife: yes, she would have still married me.
She went through the whole rehabilitation process with him again; but this time, she had to learn a lot more. Now a double amputee, Jim would need much more daily assistance. Once again, Jim tried to not be discouraged despite even more doctors’ warnings about using another prosthesis.
“Jim, you better be careful this time around,” one of the doctors told him. “Using this prosthesis could lead you to a heart attack - it’s larger and heavier.”
“I appreciate your honesty, but I think I’m going to try anyway,” he replied with an eager smile.
This time around, he tried even harder. One afternoon, while at the hospital during rehabilitation, Jim formed a very specific goal: to stand up and “pee like a man.”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Jim told the doctors with a laugh. “You think that I’m just some crazy old guy who uses a urinal all the time and will never stand up to use the toilet. But just you wait!”
He held this hopeful, positive mood all throughout his hospital stay and at the Goshen facilities, a nearby nursing home. Near the end of his stay, he told the nurses that he had to leave three days before Valentine’s Day - no matter what.
“I am going on a Queen Mary cruise around the Mediterranean!” he explained excitedly.
The nurses just stared at him. “How could someone who just lost his second leg be so willing to venture out in the world?” they asked each other.
Even though the nurses wanted him to stay for another week, Jim replied with only two words: “no way!”
He got his way. Jim and Theresa sailed along the Mediterranean for two weeks, taking in the sights and sounds of the bright blue, glimmering sea. When they returned home, Jim picked up just where he left off at the rehabilitation center. He tried using the heavy, yet important, second prosthesis - the one that doctors warned him about using.
On June 4, 2007, he tried too hard. He was admitted to what felt like his second home - Elkhart General Hospital. This time, though, it was because of a heart attack due to congestive heart failure. Later that day, he did something that most people thought was impossible - he survived. Even with a very weak heart, he somehow pulled through. He reminded people why he was a fighter.
He recovered in the hospital for five weeks, but was not allowed to go home just yet. Theresa had to send him to Goshen facilities, a nursing home in the Elkhart area. When she was able to take him home, she ended up learning even more things about Jim - and herself.
Each morning when she woke up, Theresa instantly rose out of bed, ready to start her daily routine of helping Jim. She had to be on a specific schedule, providing him with medicine, food, hygiene, and the ability to move.
One morning, she peeked into Jim’s room, with a toothbrush in one hand and toothpaste in the other. She was ready to help Jim start his day, but he seemed preoccupied. He was watching Regis & Kelly, one of his favorite shows. Just as she was going to tell Jim to get ready, she paused. Setting the toothbrush and tooth paste down on the bathroom counter, she let him enjoy himself. His routine could wait; she could be patient.
“Let me know when you are ready, and I will be here,” she told Jim. Wherever Jim was, she was there - through the good times and the bad.
People are amazed with Jim’s determination and strong will; they can’t believe he has fought off so many complications. Even doctors described him as a “walking miracle” with everything he has endured over the years. He defied all odds.
“He is the kind of person that will just never give up,” Theresa tells people. “He loves life and I think that is why he is still here.”
Jim can only smile at these remarks from Theresa. “I did the best I could - I just do it,” he told people. “I live, I learn, and do everything possible in my time left.”
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