Darcy McQueeny

September 19, 2019

EN101

Memoir

It was a normal day for me in 6th grade. I was at my friend’s house just hanging

out. Then suddenly I got a call from my dad. He said he’s not going to be home for a

couple more hours. This got me kind of worried. I didn’t know what to think. I let it slide

but then I realized something must be wrong. After the couple hours passed, my friend’s

dad came in to tell me that my mom was in the hospital. This is when our family’s life

started to change. I’ve never felt something like this. My whole stomach dropped to the

floor, I went numb. I didn’t know where to go from here. Me being only in 6th grade, I

wasn’t familiar with what all of this meant. I was told strictly that my mom was sick and

sleeping at the hospital until they find out what’s wrong. I had no answers. I ended up

having to sleep at my friend’s house that night, just thinking and wondering.

You always think “it will never happen to me”, until it does. I spent hours with no

answers. When I was finally contacted by my dad, he broke the news that my mom will

be in the hospital for the next week until they know more. This meant my dad was going

to spend the night with her. I ended up sleeping at my friend’s house for a week straight. I

didn’t get many updates, but that’s because there was nothing to update me on. The

doctors would spend hours each day trying to figure out what was wrong. My mom

couldn’t eat or feel the bottom half of her body, everything was becoming abnormal. My

dad started to let me visit my mom, but that personally made it harder for me. Seeing my

mom sick tore me apart. When I first saw my mom lying in the hospital bed, my stomach
dropped to the floor. I didn’t think it was real. I looked at my dad and the look on his face

told me that this was going to change our lives forever. I remember constantly asking my

dad if she was going to be okay, he could never give me a full answer because they really

didn’t know. It took the doctors weeks of testing to come to a conclusion.

The day we found out my mom had been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis was

when we knew it was our time to fight. According to the Oxford Dictionary, Multiple

Sclerosis is “a chronic, typically progressive disease involving damage to the sheaths of

nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord, whose symptoms may include numbness,

impairment of speech and of muscular coordination, blurred vision, and severe fatigue”.

In my mom’s situation, it affected her legs and feet. This caused her to experience severe

numbness and pain in her feet 24/7. The first thing the doctors told her when she was

diagnosed was, she will never be able to walk again. This wasn’t a set back for her, this

was a challenge. My dad looked at my mom and said “Don’t worry, I’ll get you up on

your feet again”. From that day forward my mom spent seven days a week at physical

therapy. Each day she was transported in a handicapped van from our house to the

therapy facility an hour away. Six to eight hours were spent at the therapy facility doing

multiple exercises helping her gain back muscle in her legs and feet. I remember one of

the physical therapists coming up to me saying my mom is one of the hardest working

people they have ever seen walk through their doors. I would spend most days there

watching my mom work her butt off. I even would do the exercises with her. Anything to

help get her mind off the pain me and my dad would do. The physical therapy carried on

for over 4 months. I could see the progress being made each week, but I honestly didn’t

know how far it would go. I always had the words “You’ll never be able to walk again” in
the back of my head. It just seemed so impossible for things to go back to the way they

were. But knowing my family, I knew we could arrange something.

After the 4 months of physical therapy, we all started to see huge progress. There

were multiple doctor visits throughout these 4 months and the doctors couldn’t believe

their eyes. Each visit got better and better. Towards the end of the fourth and final month,

my mom told us she wanted to try and get back up on her feet again. Day by day we

would allow her to walk with the walker and cane. There was definitely improvement

each day but we never knew how long it would continue to grow. How strong really is

this disease? Is it even possible for my mom to walk again? I always had so many

questions but didn’t know who or how to ask because they all seemed so silly. No one

seemed as if they would know the answers. All I ever wanted was answers, but I could

never get them.

One day I finally got the answer I’ve been waiting for. My mom looked me and

my dad in the eyes and said she thinks she finally got enough strength back to start

walking again. We thought she was going crazy. She still had two weeks left of therapy

and could just barely walk with a cane. But, she proved us wrong. My mom started ten

steps away from us and got closer and closer each step with no support from anything.

We couldn’t believe our eyes, she did it. She walked again. It only got better from here.

She figured out her body more and realized she has the strength to hold herself up but

will always have pain in her feet no matter what. The next doctor visit was something we

couldn’t wait to attend. The doctor’s jaw dropped when she walked into the room with

nothing. They call her a living miracle. From that day on, my mom is known as a living

miracle. I don’t know what I would do without her strength. She proves to me everyday
that anything is possible. In our family, we like to look at this as a blessing, not a curse.

This has made our family as strong as it could ever be, and I wouldn’t trade it for the

world.