Everyone lives different lives, and some are more complicated than others. Once in a while, a child is born with a medical condition, sometimes they are obvious, and other times you would not know unless you know the person well that they were different. Being born with a physical limitation is not a laughing matter and some may try very hard to hide it.  I once knew a young man we will call Daniel, he was born with spinal bifida, but from looking at him, no one could tell anything was wrong. In fact, the doctors had no idea anything was wrong with the boy until he started having serious bladder infections, at the age of 5. After years of seeing the doctors, specialist still could not figure out what was wrong with this boy. It caused so much hardship on the family that the parent divorced and the doctors told the mother to take Daniel and move to another city, where he could get the help he needed. So they did.

That is when the doctor’s discovered that Daniel had a medical condition and a tumor growing from the tip of his spine, and it was tethering his spinal cord. The only way they knew he had a tumor because there was a pimple on his back that never went away. So after doing x-rays, it was discovered that the tumor was going to snap Daniel’s spinal cord, if it was not removed right away, and he would never be able to talk. However, one of the problems with the surgery is there was also a huge chance of paralysis.  However, at the age of 8, Daniel knew he wanted to be normal and wanted to take the chance with the surgery. It was a 13 hour procedure, and in the process some of his nerves were damaged, but luckily, he was able to walk.

As Daniel got older, he blended in well with the other kids; he was a little shy and did not play sports out of fear of hurting his back. Daniel has a pretty normal life, as a teenager, and even held a job, while in high school and college. He was actually very loved and popular, which made some dislike him, but that is part of growing up. One day, while on his way to work, Daniel was hit by a big rig, from the rear. He had a lot of back pain, he went to the doctor and it was discovered that the tumor had grown back and his spinal cord was flat as a pancake and about to snap—again. So Daniel had to have his second spinal surgery. However, he almost died this time.

During this second spinal surgery, when Daniel woke up. He noticed blood all over the bed and floor, and it would not stop spilling. They called the nurse into the room, and they were scared. No one knew why the blood was coming out of his penis, and it would not stop. As you know, blood clots, so it was backing up in his bladder and the boy could not pee. So the nurse has to use a catheter and saline solution, hook up to a syringe and push the saline in his bladder and suck out the coagulated blood. The process was painful and took hours, and when they would clear all of the blood out of his bladder, he starting to bleed again. After days of this going on, the Charge Nurse finally tells Daniel, “We are going to have to give you a blood transfusion before you go into shock.” That day a group of Daniel’s friends and family from the bay area came to visit him, and after about an hour, they looked down and saw a pool of blood on the floor. Daniel was not care, he was peaceful. He had made up his mind that he would just bleed to death. They tried to force him to have a blood transfusion, but he would not. He had already lost two pints of blood and they  knew he would probably die, so his sister begged him to have the blood transfusion, and as he looked into her beautiful brown eyes, he could not refuse.

Later that day, the pumped two bags of blood into Daniel, and at this point, he has been in the hospital for 10 days. After the two transfusions, guess what, the pools of blood started spilling onto the floor again, and no one knew where the blood was coming from or what was wrong. Daniels sister lost so much weight because she was scared for her brother’s life and the father had taken so much time off of work to make sure his son lived, he was about to lose his house. So the doctor’s took the boy back to surgery, and it was discovered that he had a “Questionable” urethra tear, which was causing the hemorrhages. Although, the boy lost four pints of blood, but after the last two transfusions, they sent him home and did not give him anymore blood.

After that episode, Daniel was in recovery. He spent a few years at home, then went to college. Had a normal college life, then went to China to study abroad and graduated from junior college. The young man came back to Sacramento, California, enrolled in Sac State and had plans to get is BA, in two years, and move to New York. However, life did not go as planned. Daniel got robbed, his car vandalized and beat up pretty bad. Also because of death threats he hard to drop out of college, but this young man was determined to have a normal life.  He started talking to reporters and admired their work and even tried to help them write, but not before long, this became an abusive situation.

The reporters got jealous and found out personal information about Daniel and started spreading rumors about him being a girl and having a period and they also called him a dog and made up even more vicious rumors. It ripped the family apart and ruined Daniel’s reputation to the point people would choke him while he was driving, try to run him over, or simply mess with him until he had a break down. Daniel still tried to live a normal life. One day he was drinking with the guys and one of them wanted to find out if he was a man or not, pushed him to the floor and pulled his pants down. The young man was so hurt, he just laid there, unable to move.

The next week, Daniel told his sister he was in pain, and he made him go to the doctor, turns out that he fractures his spine in two places. Because of what the young man has been through, it is too hard for him to sit too long, he cannot lift much, and also developed ulcerative colitis, which is an inflammation of the intestines. The young man also had to have a lesion, which the doctors thought was cancer, removed from his blabber, so this young man is in a lot of pain. The surgery also caused more bleeding issues, for weeks on end. People made fun of him online, for about a year (a reporter nonetheless), and none of these reporters has been fired or made to pay for damages about the rumors they are spreading. They have even set the young man up to have him arrested so no one will ever know what the reporters did, but that did not work out. As it stands, people still tease Daniel and try to make life hard on him, but do not know what he is going through.

The young man wanted nothing more than to get a good paying job, take care of himself, and buy a home, but his reputation is so damaged that no one wants to hire him. Not only that, but with the stomach issue, some days he has stomach pains for days on end, along with back pain and headaches, which would make it nearly impossible to have a traditional job and make enough to support himself without getting hurt. As it stands, the reporters have been slandering the young man for over 8 years, but many of them are tired of the young man being hit, teased and abused and have been speaking up. We are not sure what is going to happen, but the corporations these reporters work for know what their employees have done.

My thing is, I want to let you know, just because someone is attractive and doing well, does not mean they are perfect. Also, to find out someone has medical issues and to spread that around is not only a crime, but is very immature. Not only is this young man in pain on the daily, he has to deal with more idiots than most because the reporters put him on blast and made up horrible stories about him, so it is not safe for this young man to be in public for too long. Personally, I could you imagine what it is like to want a normal life and have people physically hurt you and spread rumors about you and you are not even sure what is going to happen in your future as far as finances goes because you are injured? As with many men, his opportunities of observation were not as good as their opportunities of expression. So finally, the young man just gave up his hopes and dreams and is not depressed and not talking to anyone. From a tumor to all of these issues that did not used to exist. All he wanted was a normal life, job, house, and car, and his life is now ruined. So when you see him, be sure to laugh and keep teasing him, I am sure that is helping. Also, imagine how hard it is to even make a friend, let alone get a date, but I am sure the rogue reporters are happy. I bet Daniel now regrets getting the blood transfusions because now he is stuck here, living in pain and with the consequences. (Names were changed to protect the innocent.)