Published: 20 Feb 2020
After the family segment, where our fathers were introduced, as well as our brothers, Ellen moved on to our new jobs as teachers where each of our budding authors was introduced, much to the excitement of the audience, comprised of their parents and the rest of the student body and the entire staff of teachers and ancillary help in the school.
After Greg’s appearance there were a few others brought out on stage. Ingrid, (Dr. Ingram), who explained what had been done to restore the use of Josh’s right arm, and Dr. Chris who explained the two surgeries to fix my pelvis. The one person who we hadn’t expected, but were thrilled to see come out was Theresa, our physical therapist who had gotten us interested in diving in the hydro therapy sessions she had given us what seemed like a lifetime ago. All in all it was a very fun couple of hours for all involved and Ellen made sure everyone in the audience was involved, doing her usual opening by dancing among the audience, asking questions of them and even interviewing many of them during the taping, but spending the most time talking with Terry and Jason and of course our dads and brothers.
It was revealed at the end of the taping that this had been taped not for her daily weekday show, but for a two hour long special she and her staff were creating for a weekend night special, one of a few she was involved with for her network for the upcoming season. She visited with many of the Major clan after the taping and we found out more about the times Frank and Stan had been frequent guests on her show and even Noah and Chris and some of their boys had also been on, including Jake and Alan, the big time novelists in their family.
It really was one of the most unusual afternoons I think we had ever spent, all in all. The boys were thrilled, and our students would get a taste of fame once the special was aired, but right now they and their families were very happy with the way things had worked out. Some were moving on to high school, but about fifteen we would still be seeing around the middle school as they matriculated from 7th to 8th grade, for the Fall semester.
We had a few weeks before classes started again, and we spent some of that time working on our class plans and our class reading lists. But the majority of our time was spent with the twins, riding the trails, going fishing, even camping out a few times with them out by the pond at the far end of our fields, sometimes with their three teenaged Uncles, Bill, Justin and Brian. Our brothers had no outstanding great athletic abilities, but all three had played on both the middle school soccer and baseball teams and continued to do so during their freshman year of high school, but their biggest achievements were that the three of them were excellent students and were all taking AP classes like Josh and I had. They even got to skip a high school grade; they were focused on entering college as sophomores.
When the Ellen Special aired the day after Thanksgiving, we had a viewing party and we had invited all our family and friends to watch the show at our house. It was a fun night, watching what the production company had been able to accomplish with all the raw footage shot in our school auditorium, and interspersed with news clippings and footage of our competitions from Middle school right up to and including footage from the 2020 Olympics. Calum and Scott were chuffed to see themselves on TV and just three days later we became the legal fathers of the boys at a hearing in the county’s Family Court.
So far we had had a quiet Fall and everything was going along really well for all of us on the estate, the Fall haunted hayrides again benefiting the charities we had originally set them up for, and we all had fun being involved with them with the help of new student volunteers (and several teachers and returning students), as we had since the first year we had started them. It was on the second day into December when our lives took a turn again.
We were contacted by Mr. Morgan, our Olympic diving coach. He was calling to let us know about a horrific car accident that had taken the lives of our Olympic diving teammates, Pedro and Chuck that day. They had been on their way to the market after the team practice at the college they coached diving at was over, and hadn’t picked up their son from school yet. Coach was one of their neighbors and an emergency contact both Pedro and Chuck had listed for them and their fifteen-year-old adopted son, Marcus.
He had Marcus staying with him and his wife, but he thought he’d give us a heads up; we were designated as Marcus’s guardians in Pedro and Chuck’s will. He knew this because both guys had asked what Coach thought about their idea shortly after the adoption was finalized in the family court where they all lived in Maryland, you see, Marcus was confined to a wheelchair. It seemed he had been a normal active thirteen-year-old and he woke one morning unable to move his legs. He and his dog had spent the previous afternoon playing in their yard, which was abutting the woods. Pedro and Chuck had taken him directly to the emergency ward and over a three day period of tests and consultations with numerous doctors it was determined that he had been infected with ticks from the woods, or his dog had been, and although several had been removed from Marcus, he still had the paralysis, that had all happened a year and three quarters ago.
We knew we could have the school get substitutes to fill in for us and Coach thought the funeral for the couple would be held at the college in a week, but he assured us that he and his wife could take care of Marcus until we could arrive to have him officially moved to our custody. He told us he had explained all this to the boy and he had responded well to the news that Josh and I would be coming at some point to take him home with us, but Coach thought that the more time we could spend with him the better, before taking him home with us.
So Josh and I made our arrangements to take ten days off at school and we prepared the twins for the imminent arrival of Marcus, in fact we prepared to take the boys with us to Maryland to pick him up so they would have the maximum amount of time to get to know him, and him to get to know our twins. Calum and Scott were excited about having an older boy living in the house with us. While our home was modest in size, we had had the foresight to make sure that it would suffice for us even into old age, or the Gods forgive, if one of us was confined to a wheelchair as I had been twice already. There was a downstairs bath and a roomy first floor bathroom, the only thing needed to accommodate Marcus and his wheelchair was a ramp to wheel up onto the front porch, the rest of it would be smooth sailing.
We had Josh’s dad, Ron, over to explore the possibilities for the ramp, and he suggested that since the front steps to the porch were not all that wide, that the railing at the far right end of the porch railing be removed and a ramp from there down to the edge of the driveway at that side of the house be built. He said he would be able to save the section of railing removed, just in case it was needed some time later. So Ron agreed to do the ramp for us while we were away and Ian and Wayne arranged for us to fly on a chartered jet back and forth and, our arrangements having been set up with the school, we were on our way to Maryland three days later.
Calum and Scott had their first plane flight and they were both excited and scared about the whole experience, but they loved looking out the windows of the chartered jet to look down on the tiny world below them. We were being picked up by Coach a few hours later and he explained that Marcus would be at his own home just down the street from Coach’s house, with Coach’s wife, waiting for us. There was a van there for our use and Marcus wanted us all to stay with him there until it was time for him to fly back with us. Coach told us the boy had been going over for a couple of hours a day since the accident, and just recently had been going over to select what he wanted to take with him, as we had told him that whatever he wanted we could arrange for it to be shipped to our home in Massachusetts.
Marcus seemed resigned to the fact his fathers were never coming home, and he had a sort of lost look about him as we got to know him at first, but it really was Calum and Scott that broke the ice, so to speak. Of course, they are almost totally irresistible, and they had him smiling and then laughing as he gave them rides on his lap around the house as he maneuvered his motorized wheelchair around the lovely ranch style home he had been sharing with Pedro and Chuck. We saw plenty of pictures of our Olympic team and some candid shots of the couple at our wedding all framed and hung on the walls, and Marcus indicated that those would all be boxed up before we left, but those and some of his fathers’ awards would be the last things taken from the home.
Coach and his wife put out quite the spread for our supper before going home to their own house down the street. We had agreed to drive Marcus to the funeral the next day and follow Coach and his wife to the college natatorium where the memorial event was to take place before the internment. The men had wanted as casual a ceremony as possible and that is what they got. Hundreds of mourners had arrived by the appointed time for the secular service even before our two vehicles had arrived. There were others they had coached with, and present and past students they had both shared were in attendance, and even most all of our former teammates from our Olympic diving and swimming teams, all mixed in with their friends and family, who all made it a point to talk with Marcus and us. It was a very moving service and after a short drive to the cemetery we watched as their urns were placed in the memorial wall there.
I have to say that Marcus held up extremely well most of the time, but when it did get too much for him we were there for him, and the boys had their own ways of consoling him, which he appreciated. They asked their usual questions of him; in fact, one would start a question and the other finish it. This amused Marcus and kept him somewhat entertained before the actual ceremony started. He explained who the people were that stopped to talk to him, he explained from what aspect of his fathers’ lives the people were from (school, neighbors, swim team or diving team, shop owners, friends, etc.) and he did it so Josh and I knew as well as the twins.
When the services were all over and we were back at his house Marcus asked if it would be rude of him to go to his room for a while by himself, and we told him we both thought that if he needed the time to himself, none of us would begrudge him that, but I suggested he set a time for his grieving. No one ever got over something like he had in a day or two, or sometimes in years, but if he gave in to his grief in timed segments, it might just make it easier as the days went on. Sometimes he would have to force himself to participate in what was going on around him, but in time he would find it easier to deal with his grief. He got a hug from each of us and then as he rolled his chair toward his bedroom, he called back to us that he’d see us in an hour.
Of course Scott and Calum wanted to go find him, but we told them after they had changed into their regular clothes that Marcus was having a lay down and he’d be back with us soon. To distract them we began to prepare our dinner, which did keep us all occupied, trying to cook in an unfamiliar kitchen, while making sure the twins were ripping lettuce in bite sized pieces.
Marcus rejoined us an hour later, on the dot. He must have set his alarm clock. He too had changed clothes and to distract him further I took him aside into the living room while Josh kept the twins occupied. I asked Marcus to tell me about his stay in the hospital and about the tests he had there when he had woken up unable to move his legs. I reminded him that I too had not been allowed to walk after my two surgeries and had used wheelchairs while recovering. He told me that his dads had told him all about Josh and me and they had watched the movie made about us together after his dads and Josh and I had competed in the Olympics and then they had seen the Ellen special the day after Thanksgiving, just before the accident that had taken his fathers from him. He was able to tell me much about his hospital stay and he even had some of the test results in a folder he and his dads had been given copies of when they had left the hospital.
After our talk, we went into the kitchen to find the boys and Josh putting the finishing touches on our dinner. We were done with the cleanup after dinner and our boys wanted to show Marcus the pictures on my laptop of our home and the rest of the property. So, once I had booted it up we all sat around the table and we showed Marcus where we lived, and where he would be joining us. He seemed really interested in all that was shown him, but seemed a bit down when the twins enthused about the horses and the swimming pool. Josh explained to him that both the horse riding and the swimming were available to him. We had a couple of horses that were trained to be ridden by folks with no leg control and that by using float wraps on his legs he’d be able to swim in the pool with the rest of us too. He seemed a bit curious about all of that, but I told him that it wasn’t required of him to participate, but that I had done it and our friend Terry had done so, too before he got the use of his legs back.
He seemed skeptical, but was willing to give it all a try when we all got up to our home. I assured him that was all we asked, that he at least give it a try. The next couple of days we helped him choose items from the house to keep, we arranged to have those bigger items shipped to our home, we packed his clothing, separating out the summer clothes to be shipped and the winter clothing to be packed into suitcases for our return flight. Josh and I had meetings with the attorney handling the estate and we had sit downs with both Marcus and that lawyer who explained the options available to us and Marcus and it was decided that after we left for home the house would be cleaned out and then put on the market, all proceeds to be placed in trust for Marcus’s future.
We asked him if he would like a going away party, but he hadn’t wanted one, he had had a chance to say his goodbyes at the memorial service and the funeral, and other than the Coach and his wife he didn’t feel that close to anyone else, so the last night we were there we took the Coach and his wife with us out to dinner. Our flight home the next day was not as stressful as I had feared, the twins kept Marcus entertained as they imparted their knowledge about flying, having flown one more time than Marcus had.
Once the plane had landed at the smaller airport nearer our town it was only a 45-minute drive to the house and there was a welcoming committee to greet us all. Our four dads, and our three brothers were there to help us get settled back into our house, and to greet Marcus. Ron had done a great job on his newest ramp construction, even replacing the front door threshold to one beveled on both sides to make it a smoother transition for the wheelchair tires to maneuver over. The introductions took place right there by the driveway and when we all entered the house, we found that the guys had all pitched in and had created a welcome home feast for us. There was time to show Marcus the first-floor bedroom and bath he would be using, and he said that it really was much bigger than he had thought from the pictures we had shown him.
We had a lot of help getting the rented van unpacked before we all sat and ate and got to socialize and our family members all got to know a bit more about Marcus, and he them. After dinner and the big cleanup, we got Marcus settled in his space and then we unpacked our own suitcases and I sorted out a wash and began that as the twins resettled into their room upstairs while Josh took care of our unpacking in our room. I was bursting to get on our computer after the boys were all in bed that night. Some of the things Marcus had told me about his hospital stay and their diagnosis had me really curious, and the few things I had read on my laptop while we were in Maryland had me itching to do a more thorough search into our new charge’s condition.
The next day was to be a full one for Marcus. He had met the two sets of granddads, and our brothers, Brian, Justin, and Bill, who were just about three years older than him, and about to start at the state University over the mountain in Amherst. But now they were going to actually spend time together, first riding one of our longer trails after we got Marcus positioned on one of the gentler mares we usually used with a handicapped rider and the special support saddle used for those riders and a few turns around the outdoor paddock and we were off. It really was an enjoyable ride and Marcus was totally chuffed and oh so pleased. If he thought his first horseback ride was fantastic, you should have seen him in the big pool after.
We used two sets of the twins’ old arm floats on his legs to give them buoyancy in the water and by either dog paddling or using swimming strokes with his arms he was able to propel himself all over the surface of the water. He had a pretty exhausting day, and after dinner we found him settled in on one of the family room couches, with Calum and Scott on each side of him, all three of them snuggled in and having a short snooze together.
We still had the rental van with the wheelchair capability so getting to and from church the next day was easy, and the boy’s uncles rode with us, introducing Marcus to many of their friends from high school we saw there. We got to introduce him to our friends and neighbors, including Terry and Jason, our best friends and the best men at our wedding. Terry looked over Marcus’s wheelchair and told him that he also had been confined to one for a few years until he had met Josh and me. He got to tell Marcus the whole story when they joined us for brunch and then another horseback ride after the church services. While the rest of them were out riding and swimming after brunch I was cooped up in our bedroom, searching for that morsel that kept nagging at me from one of Josh and my searches after we found out about Marcus coming to live with us. After a few hours, when I guessed everyone was in the pool already, I paused in my research to get dinner started. Once the Sunday roast was in the oven and a salad was in the fridge, I went back to our bedroom and there on the screen, once I woke up the computer, was the article about juvenile paralysis by tick bite I had read, what seemed like months ago, but was only a few weeks actually.
I printed the whole article, making two copies, and then went downstairs to finish getting our evening meal ready and the table set. After dinner, and the boys were all watching something on the TV in the family room, I showed a copy of the article to Josh and he really became excited about five paragraphs into the piece and he asked if this could work with Marcus, and I told him I thought it was at least worth a try, wasn’t it?
The next day was Monday, and since school was out for the winter break, we had plenty of time to spend with the boys. Josh took all three shopping, I know, silly man, taking three kids grocery and Christmas gift shopping, but it did give me time to put in motion what Josh and I had talked about last night after the boys were all in their bedrooms for the rest of the night. I got the other copy of the article and faxed it to Ingrid’s office, putting on the cover page that it was information for a possible consultation with Dr. Max Wheeler, could Dr. Ingram call Dr. Wheeler when she had a chance to read the article?
Ingrid called about three hours later, just about the time I expected the guys back from shopping. I took the call upstairs to our bedroom, where I had most of my research on the desk in our room. I brought Ingrid up to date on Josh and my life, including the addition of Marcus and his condition. She agreed that the cause of the continued paralysis was baffling if the Maryland hospital had removed each of the ticks entirely, which they claimed to have done.
We talked for a few more minutes, Ingrid telling me she thought she knew someone who could help us, and she’d get back to us. The rest of the night went just like the others, but tonight Josh and I had another talk before bed, this time with a bit of excitement for Marcus, but our excitement carried over into our bedtime routine and that certainly wasn’t anything we wanted the kids involved in, or to even know about, until they were much older!
We talked in the morning and decided to not tell Marcus about our research or that we had contacted Dr. Ingram, we just wanted more information before getting his hopes up. The days of winter wore on, the holidays were gotten through,and, weather permitting, the boys all riding when someone was able to help Marcus up on one of the “special” horses, the boys all riding together, either on their own, or with the uncles or a granddad or two with them, often taking a trail that customers were not riding at the time, again, weather permitting. Often, we all went to one of the attractions in the area, making sure beforehand that it was wheelchair accessible before going. About two weeks later Ingrid called and asked if we would be available for a thorough examination of Marcus by herself and a colleague from Tufts University Medical Center at their teaching hospital in Springfield, Baystate Medical Center, on Saturday, just after noon. That was the weekend before school started up for the second semester. We were there at 11:45.
The granddads and uncles all were enlisted to keep the twins occupied while the examination was going on, which freed both Josh and me to accompany Marcus, but first we had to have a talk with him to explain what was going to be happening and why. We asked Calum and Scott to continue watching their program, and asked Marcus to sit with Josh and me at the kitchen table. He looked apprehensive at first, not sure about the reason for us separating him from the boys, they had really become very close already, which we were eternally thankful for. Josh kicked our little meeting off by asking Marcus if he was going to be happy with us, and Marcus responded that it was not what he had expected at first, it was better!!
Yes, he missed Pedro and Chuck, but Josh and I were quickly filling in for them and the bonus, he said, was having the twins around him all day. He told us that he already thought of them as his brothers. I asked if he wished he had the use of his legs again, and as he assured us he did, every day, he started to tear up and we each went to him and hugged him from both sides, telling him we wanted to take him to see the specialist that had helped both Josh and me, and that she and another doctor wanted to see him on Saturday. This was just a more thorough examination, no promises were being offered or made, but we really trusted this specialist and she wanted to look him over and maybe run a few scans to see if anything was missed while he was hospitalized in Maryland.
He seemed OK with the examination by these two doctors, but he asked if we could afford to do this, as he knew that doctors and hospitals were not cheap. We assured him that no matter what it cost we were prepared to spend it on him, no matter what the outcome was of the exams and tests they might run, and it wouldn’t take anything away from the family by doing these tests, we had two incomes to draw from, some savings and some trusts to draw on. I didn’t think he was ready for us to tell him that he would be quite a wealthy young man himself, after Pedro and Chuck’s estate was settled.
That appointment on Saturday was one of the oddest I had ever seen, but well worth it. First Marcus was scanned, a full body MRI and then a body and head ultrasound. Then both Ingrid and her much respected associate, Dr. Harry Vrenner, both did a full body visual exam, using magnifying glasses and marking a few spots on Marcus’s body with what looked like magic marker, but was iodine we were told. They each scanned one side of his body but then switched sides and went over his full body again, front to back, head to toe. By this time, it was past noon and they told us that we should go eat lunch and hopefully they would have some results for us by the time we got back up from the cafeteria. Josh went out in the hall to call the granddads as they were watching the twins while we were at the medical center with Marcus. I stayed in the exam room and helped Marcus get dressed.
The twins were anxious about Marcus’s exam, but doing well with their granddads and had already been out for a ride with their uncles. Marcus told me as he was getting dressed that that was one of the most intense exams he had ever experienced. I told him it might get even more hands on after they had a look at the results they had come up with, but I was trying to be nonchalant about the whole thing, just trying to not get his hopes up, but I had noticed even with my naked eyes that some of the places marked by the doctors on his body were slightly raised bumps, almost like the beginnings of a pimple. My thought was that these were important and possibly an indication that not all of the whole body of the ticks had been properly removed from his body in the Maryland hospital.
I knew from my own research that if the entire tick was not removed, that even if just the tiny head of the tick was left in the body, that that was enough to cause severe allergic reactions in a human body, even paralysis. I got him comfortably into his wheelchair and we picked up Josh out in the hall and we three went down to the excellent cafeteria on a lower floor of the medical center. Josh told us how the twins were doing and that they sent Marcus their hopes the doctors wouldn’t hurt him, and we all had a chuckle at that as Marcus told us that what had been done to him so far was more ticklish than uncomfortable.
When we finished our lunch we made use of a handicapped accessible restroom so Marcus would have a chance to relieve himself in the private stall and we used the other facilities in the room while he took care of his needs in private, but with us nearby in case he needed one or both of us. We three went upstairs to the floor we had been on and we had just exited the elevator when one of Ingrid’s assistants spotted us and took us to an office where we met with Ingrid and Dr. Vrenner. They obviously had eaten lunch there as Ingrid cleared off sandwich wrappers and coffee cups off the desk as Dr. Vrenner placed images from some of the scans on light boxes for us to view. They first explained that the scans and x-rays showed no damage that would cause the loss of use of Marcus’s lower body, so their observations proved out the case, just as the hospital in Maryland had diagnosed originally.
I guess we all looked a bit deflated by this, as Ingrid told us to hold on just a bit, there was more. She then showed us a slide of something, it looked like a dinosaur’s head, all crusty looking and rows of sharp looking teeth along the elongated skull. She explained that this was a hugely enlarged depiction of a tick head, somewhat distorted because it had been removed with forceps or a pair of tweezers, but this is what they suspected might be the cause of Marcus not being able to move his legs. She explained that the real thing, or maybe things, embedded in Marcus were probably no bigger than a pinhead, but the venom they released in the body could make a person paralyzed for life, if not removed, they were that toxic.
Dr. Vrenner then spoke up and said that their mutual examination of Marcus using the magnifying glasses led them to believe that there was more than one of these tick heads in his body, and these were the places they had marked with the iodine. He explained that some of the ten locations they had marked could very well turn out to be blemishes, like a pimple starting, but they wanted permission to do a further exam, and explore these ten spots better. They assured us this could take place all within an hour, or two at the most, it could be done with just a topical anesthetic, and they were prepared to start as soon as Marcus could get undressed and on the exam table he had been on earlier in the room across the hall.
I looked to Josh to gauge his reaction, but we both saw out of the corners of your eyes that Marcus was removing his shirt as fast as he could, our decision was made for us. We wheeled him into the examination room and helped him get fully undressed as the doctors scrubbed up and both Josh and I kissed his forehead, wishing him luck. The two doctors passed us in the hall and went to see their patient. A nurse came into the waiting room just a few moments later and she said the doctors wanted her to show us exactly what our son was going through. She took us to a computer monitor and we got to see a live feed from the examination room, watching as a surgical microscope was focused on one of the iodine spots and then a mechanical arm was focused on the spot and the tiny bump in the middle of the spot was lanced and the inside observed by both doctors through the microscope. They took turns doing this and on the fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh spots there was a bit more than just lancing the tiny bump and looking at the inside. There was another mechanical arm controlled by the doctor at the microscope and a wide needle was inserted into the tiny bump and all three times the operator told the attending doctor they had it. As I said, they took turns doing this and they checked all the remaining spots and then a type of antibiotic salve was put on all ten spots and they were bandaged with what looked like wider than normal band- aids. We could even hear Marcus ask when they were going to start poking around after the last spot was covered.
He admitted later he had fallen asleep after getting up on the table and hadn’t realized what they were doing or that they had finished. Ingrid came to the waiting room and asked what we thought, after telling us they had removed four tick heads from Marcus. I told her that maybe because he was our ward, we were fascinated by the procedure, and how long would we have to wait to see if the procedure was a success. By then Dr. Vrenner had joined us and he said that there really was no telling. If it had only been one tick head removed, he would expect to see some improvement in twenty-four hours or so, but with three of them removed it could be forty- eight to seventy- two hours, they just didn’t know. What he could tell us was that the heads were now in their lab, being tested for the toxic enzymes that produced paralysis in humans, and that might give us a better time-frame for whether the procedure worked or not. He told us that right now we had a young man that wanted to go home and see his brothers.
With private phone numbers exchanged, and orders that Marcus take in plenty of fluids to virtually flush out his system, we were off for home, Marcus telling us he felt no different. We reminded him that the two doctors had not made any promises and that the toxins from the ticks were still in his body, that was why the doctors wanted him to drink plenty of fluids to help flush them out if that was possible. Then we would know if there was going to be any improvement or not. He settled back down, but you could tell he had gotten his hopes up for a miracle cure, and the fact we were all returning home just made it seem to him that no changes were to be expected.
We stopped briefly at my fathers’ house and I ran in to collect the twins, and once I had thanked the dads for watching them we hopped in the van and Josh drove around the drive and we stopped in our driveway to let Marcus and us out and Josh pulled the van into our garage for the night. The twins wanted to hear all about his examinations and Marcus told them all about the various kinds of tests they had performed on him, but when he told them about the bumps on his body being colored red, they of course wanted to see them. Since most of them were on his buttocks and at the end of his spine he had to remove his pants to show them, so he flopped on the chaise part of the family room couch and wiggled his pants down, with the twins help. They traced the dots from one to the other and then there were the dots, covered by the adhesive bandages. Those too had to be included in the designs they were imagining by connecting the dots, but partway through this, as they included the bandaged spots, Marcus started giggling in laughter and begged the twins to stop, it was so ticklish there.
Josh and I were in the kitchen end of the family room and we heard all this happening, but when Marcus started begging them to stop, we looked over and the twins were not even touching him then, even as Marcus begged them to stop tickling him. Josh and I both went over to the couch and we each sat on either side of him, asking if it still tickled. He said yes, but not as much as before. I told him the twins were not touching him and he craned his neck back and saw they were both about a foot away, looking scared like they had broken a dish or cup or something. Josh ran his fingernail along Marcus’ spine, starting with his neck and down to his coccyx, his tailbone. Just about five inches from the end Marcus again started giggling and by the time Josh’s finger reached the end of his tailbone Marcus was in full blown laughter again. I moved to look right in his eyes and asked if he had felt those feelings since his attack by the ticks and he stopped laughing and told me no, in a kind of hushed voice. I grabbed his head and kissed his forehead and I told him that I thought that if nothing else came out of the procedures done to him today, at least we had found his funny bone.
After getting his clothing back in place he seemed so much better than the disappointed boy we had ridden home with from the hospital just about an hour and a half ago. We all sat at the table to eat our dinner and the twins told Marcus they were sorry for hurting him, and Marcus assured the boys they hadn’t hurt him at all, they had tickled him in a way no one ever had and he hoped that someday he could chase them and tickle them too. He then asked the boys to tell him all about their ride with the uncles while we were away today. They did that as Josh and I cleared our dinner dishes and got our dessert served. While at the kitchen counter Josh asked if we shouldn’t call one of the doctors, and I reminded him about how both of us had experienced the same tingling sensations as our nerves started working again, which triggered our muscles working too. I said I thought the one we should call was Theresa, maybe we could provide her with a patient to start physical therapy on.
The next morning, probably about seven o’clock, I was woken by shouts coming from downstairs. My foggy mind finally registered they were coming from Marcus in his downstairs bedroom. I panicked and shook Josh awake as I told him there was something wrong with Marcus downstairs.
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