What disease have you conqured that almost ended pool for you

Q

quitecoolguy

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I know that is a strange thread but i was posting a response to a thread and i touched on mine but thought WOW there are proablly some amazing stories out there..mine is a bit long so hang on
I was attending UD in Dayton ohio, I woke up one wed morning with a temp. of 102. I poped two tylenol and headed off to class. I woke up on thur. mornig with a temp of 102 again. I called my mom in Va and told her . She said you probally have the flu take some tylenol and keep plenty of fluids. Well i put on my timberland boots and headed to class. My boots felt like they weighed a ton. It was an effort to pick my feet up.

I headed off to class like a good little student. Well Fri. morning came and i woke up with a 102 temp and both my hands and feet had that numbing tingiling feeling that you get when you limbs fall asleep, except this wouldnt go away. I also noticed that my limbs felt weak. Well i went to class and then got out and went to enjoy my weekend. I dated a girl who lived in Sidney OHio about an hour away and headed to her home. I woke up Sat morning same temp and same numbness in my hands and feet. I was a computer science major and visual arts design minor, i had a project due on monday that i needed spay paint for.

I headed off to Wally word for some. The spraycan was on the bottom shelf , i bent down to pick it up and couldnt stand back up. I had to get my girlfriend and a walmart employee to help me stand. I had to use a shoping cart to lean on to get to the car. Accross from the walmart was a Ciroparactor, i said take me there to address this numbness and weak limbs..thinking i had pinced a nerve. He poped and snaped my body and did ultrasound heating..but said he was a bit confused because the numbness was on both sides of my body..well he tell me to come back monday. I walk out of his office and collapse in the parking lot.

A police officer see me fall an is getting ready to arrest me for be drunk in public..i tell him i am just coming from the Ciropractors office, he gives me a look like "You better sue the hell of of that guy" Well the secretary see me on the ground and her and the doctor come out to help me up. I have tears in my eyes and ask the doctor what is wrong with me. He shakes his head and says i dont know. Well i head back to my Girlfriends house and play with her kids she had three , the yougest is about 4 years old..now im sitting on the sofa holding a pepsi..she walks over to me and grabs the drink we struggle for few seconds and she wins. I dont have enough strenght to keep her from getting it.

I yell thats it take me to the damn hospital. I go and they run a cat scan , blood test...nothing. so they are about to send me home. I start to doubt that someting is wrong with me. SO i go to the bathroom and attempt the just squat then stand back up and cant..i have to use the bar in the bath room to barley pull my self errect. I come out and say "Look something is wrong i cant bend down, i have no strenght im my limbs. They still say nothing is wrong, as far as they can tell. By the grace of GOD a visiting Nerologist from another hosptial overhears the conversation and ask if he can ask me some questions.

He asks have i had a fever, i tell him yes 102 for four days straight, he ask if i have a tingling in my hands and feet, I say yes, a numbness that wont go away. He tell the doctor to admit me and do a spinal tap to see if the protien in my spinal fluid is low..dear god i will never go thru another spinal tap. Well the results come back that my protein level in my fluid is very low. He looks at me and says Mr Capers i think you have Gullien Bare Syndrome.

I say G what..doc i havent had so much as a cold in 5 years what are you talking about. He says basicly i caught the flu, and my body sent the white blood cells out to fight the virus but the signal from my brain got screwed up and my white blood cells attacked my nevers. Basicly he said is like pluging a lamp up then taking a knife and cutting away at the insalation on the wire, eventually you will cut the wire and the light goes out. I say so what do you mean by the light going out? He tells me by tommorow morning you will be paralized from the neck down. Me being the country boy that i am I look him square in the eyes and say "Your a f**&ing quack" get out of my room.

But sure as the sun is yellow i woke up and went to reach for a glass of juice and nothing..i mean nothing..i screamed in fear and yelled for help. Needless to say i spent 3 1/2 months in the hospital not being able to move it was the scariest, most paintful thing i have ever went thru or hope to go thru i would not wish GBS on my worst enemy. I had to learn how to walk, eat , dress, shower, myself all over, and yes even shoot pool, the funny thing is as fast as i got GBS, it went away on its own. I was in rehab on day and a surge of strenght went thru my body and i just stood up. it was crazy. I think the odds of getting GBS is 1 out of 300,000 people get it.

I was the 2 case of GBS in the state of Ohio. But i survived and fought back to go to school and to play pool again. Sorry so long but i think its great to hear stories of people overcoming the odds. Kinda makes you look at your own life and be thankful.
 
Last edited:
I used to work for a man that woke up one morning with GBS. He could only move his eyelids! He never made it back 100% but was almost a "posterboy" for living and dealing with the problem.
He was one of the smartest men that I have ever known and almost every person that had contact with him said the same thing.
He was older when the GBS occured so it was very hard for him to
try and rehab.

He traveled around the south and the US speaking to others that had the syndrome.
I wish I would have stayed with that company now but was not smart enough then to realize it.

I feel for you knowing what you had to have went through. I have never heard of a case being diagnosed before it onset.
Hopefully you have fully recovered. Keep shooting!
 
That's just about the scariest thing I've ever heard of. Being paralyzed is scary enough when it happens due to injury, but having the doctor say "Son, tomorrow you'll be paralyzed" and then having it come true... *shudder*

I haven't been forced to stop playing pool because of disease or injury, but I started playing pool in part because of one. I used to rock climb in High School and my first year of college. The summer after my first year I was at Devil's Lake in Wisconsin, and I fell. The sad thing was that I wasn't climbing when it happened, I was watching someone. I just standing still and suddenly slipped somehow. I fell on my butt but tipped forward and slid. But then there was a drop of about 10-12 feet, and I ended up landing flat on my chest.

It ended up that I fractured my spleen, and had pretty bad internal bleeding. The doctors said I couldn't climb or do _anything_ physical for the next 6 months while it healed. They almost took my spleen out, but they watched me in the hospital for about 5 days and the bleeding stopped.

After those six months I transferred to UW-Madison and the climbing gym there kind of sucked and was hard to get to. I was also pretty weak from the 6 month layoff, and there was a pool table in the basement of my apartment. I've climbed since then but pool has replaced climbing as my hobby now.
 
Tokyo-dave said:
Marriage:eek:
dave
Click to expand...
Yep that's the big one for most. I was lucky to marry one that let me play pool as often as I wanted. Probably glad to see me go out instead of chasing her around the house.:eek: Johnnyt
 
That's horrible. I really would not wish that on my worst enemy. Thank God you got threw that.

There are some weird things that can happen to the human body, huh?
 
I have battled cancer - Osteosarcoma - and it was one of the scariest periods of my life...

For the past several years I have been battling a neurological disorder - Multifocal Dystonia. In the early stages it was misdiagnosed as ALS (Lou Gehrig Disease) - then I was diagnosed and treated as a Parkinson patient for 2 years. I take the same medication as Michael J. Fox on a daily basis, and some days it really sucks. I go through the constant tremors, twitching, the rigidity - which is quite painful - but I can name at least a hundred other diseases that I am glad I don't have.

Over the past year I have fought back against this disease - medically -physically - and emotionally. I was walking with a cane for several years due to the loss of balance and loss of strength in my legs. Last November they started increasing my medication dosage and I went through a very challenging period of physical therapy, kinesiotherapy, and aquatherapy. They basically had to teach me how to walk all over again. Today I only use the cane in the evenings - mostly due to the side effects of my medication which causes positional low blood pressure which makes me susceptible to falling easily.

It's still no picninc, but I am back to playing like I used to - and I started playing pool every day as part of my daily activities. In late 2005 the doctors had told me that I would never be able to play pool the way I used to. I am proving them wrong. I am back to stringing racks together in 9 ball and 10 ball, I have recorded over 20 100+ runs in straight pool this year - and I am back to coaching and teaching pool full time - and I plan on hitting all of the regional tours, as well as the pro tour.

For me the key is to stay active every day. It is so easy to give up or give in to the limitations. I really do need to wake up with a warrior's attitude every day. The psychological battle is just as difficult as the physical battle. I am slowly learning that instead of this disease being the blame for the downall of my playing career, it is actually the fuel that ignites the flame and motivates me to play harder. When I look at it that way, it becomes a blessing - not a curse.
 
Those are the kind of stories i was hoping for..my heart goes out to you guys..and Blackjack you keep hitting em buddy
 
Niot a disease

But less than a year after I moved up to Wichita from Houston, I was married with a son, working 52 hours a week at Boeing, and going to graduate school carrying 12 hours, and unknown to me, my hard contacts had warped, and taken off layers of my corneas.

When it hit me, the best description I have is like a 3rd degree sunburn on your eyes with someone sticking needle through the middle at the same time.
I was blind for 2 weeks following that, and the eye doctor was teetering between treatment and cornea transplant for me. Gradually, my eyes did heal, I had to drop Graduate school (couldn't read), and I had to go to glasses. I was left with corneal scars on top of my already bad eyesight, and astigmatism.

Within the 3 year period I wore glasses again, they had gone from 4 materials to make contacts to 32 different materials, and I was once again able to wear contacts, at first with 4 holes around the edge to let more air to my eyes.

Why did I go back to glasses, well, because with glasses, the best eyesight I had was 20/60-80, and with contacts I could have 20/40 vision. I have struggled with my eyesight in Pool, but last September, I finally went to the eye doctor, and they have again made a lot of progress
in the eye area.

After 9 appointments, temporary lenses, fittings, etc.., I was able to go to soft contact lenses with astigmatism correction (although I had been told before soft lenses could not correct my astigmatism at the back of my eyes, only the front astigmatism), and now have 20/25 vision with them (read all but 2 letters on 20/20 line).

now, a little background why?: I had been in the Navy 4 years, started to college out of the Navy, had gotten married my Junior year, and had a son my Senior year, and I worked at a hospital while attending college the last couple of years. I just forgot about my eyes, and we were hard pressed for money, like all students are.

Although it may seem like a minor improvement, it has been a breath of fresh air for me visually, noticing thiings with improved clarity, especially around the edges, and has helped me in playing Pool. I often wonder how good all these guys I have played over the years would have shot with only 20/40 vision like I had to do.
 
frankncali said:
I used to work for a man that woke up one morning with GBS. He could only move his eyelids! He never made it back 100% but was almost a "posterboy" for living and dealing with the problem.
He was one of the smartest men that I have ever known and almost every person that had contact with him said the same thing.
He was older when the GBS occured so it was very hard for him to
try and rehab.

He traveled around the south and the US speaking to others that had the syndrome.
I wish I would have stayed with that company now but was not smart enough then to realize it.

I feel for you knowing what you had to have went through. I have never heard of a case being diagnosed before it onset.
Hopefully you have fully recovered. Keep shooting!
Click to expand...

The doctor made that prediction based on the my symptoms..i was losing strenght so fast due to the white blood cells eating away at my Mylon sheath (the covering over your nerves) that he made a educated guess and was dead on..i can remember them hooking me up to some machine that sends current thru you body to test the conductivity of your nerves and man by the sound of the hum that machine was making..the hum went up every time they increased the voltage...you would have thought they could have jump-started a semi with it. I was pretty lucky to be as young and healthy as i was and to have the drive to want to get healthy again.
 
Kay, my wife had been a nurse for many years and one day out of the blue she came down with histoplasmosis in one eye. Seems it is a viral infection that comes from bird crap. It left her blind in one eye. About six months later she got the same disease in the other eye! Seems this disease is endemic throughout the Ohio valley and often kills when it goes to the brain or the lungs. She was lucky and only lost her central vision. She is legally blind, has been for nearly 20 years now. If you make two fists, hold them together and place about two inches from your face that is what she sees.

I met her about six months after my first wife died and we were married about six months later. The first night I dropped her off after a date and she literally skipped across her front lawn and up the porch stairs. "My kind of woman, nothing gets her down," I thought to myself. A day or two later I was having dinner at her house when I noticed a sign over her kitchen sink. "If life gives you lemons , make lemonade."

Kay refuses to be blind, though she can neither drive nor work at a full time job. We have now been married for 14 years and our lives keep getting better everyday in every way. I built a house just for her and we have every device we can find that makes her life easier from 21 inch computer monitors to a 10 foot TV screen and lots of other stuff. I tell her all that time, she is not blind she just can't see worth a damn.

Most of the time when we go places people do not know that she can't see. She refuses to use that cain with the red tip and just walks along like anyone else. Once in awhile she will walk into a wall but what the hell. She can't see your face if she is talking to you and she tells people apart by the color of their clothes. She refuses to let me park in handicapped spots, because there are people who need those places ya know. She loves to watch pool and always likes to play. She even beats me on occasion as she does not use the cue ball when we play 8-ball (thanks to an AZB suggestion for that one). We go to matches and I will be playing in a league again this year. Kay will show up with her binoculars which she uses from about 15 feet from the table. And she will root for all her favorites again (and that is not always me!)

People are like flowers, we are either growing or dieing. The difference is we get to choose. And here is a picture of my flower soon after we were married.

Kay1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Testicular cancer.

There are several versions you can get.

I'll just go over a few. Pure Seminoma is the best. It is very slow growing and takes a long time for their to even be vascular invasion (leaves the testicle into your para-aortic lymphobic system).

Non-Seminoma grows fast, moves relatively fast, etc.

Testicular cancer spreads from your testicle to your para-aortic lymph nodes (which are in your abdomen), to your lungs and into your brain. Some people might not notice it until too late and have to get treated in for this cancer in their lungs, brain, lymph nodes, etc. Treatment for cancer this bad is brain surgery to remove the spots from your brain, then a long, arduous series of chemotherapy to kill the remaining. If it is stage III (like what I just described) your chances are not good. This is what Lance Armstrong had though, and he DID beat it. Not because he was some super athlete (that didn't hurt), but because he had a warrior attitude, plus some of the best doctors out there in regards to TC.

A lot of times if you're stage II, where it has travelled into your lymph nodes they will usually perform a surgery where they open up your belly and remove ALL of your lymph nodes (the surgery is called an RPLND), followed by (usually) 3 rounds of some high grade Chemo.

I was very fortunate. I caught mine "relatively" early - but I had PURE SEMINOMA, so it could have been growing for a while before I even noticed it. They initially performed just the orchiectomy (removal of testicle, that all testis cancer patients go through. In fact, if there is anything suspected that is their first move and they want to get you in their as quickly as possible).

Just to briefly describe the orchiectomy. They made an incision in your pelvic area above your complete package. They go down through their and "pull" the bad testicle out, and remove it. (Basically flip your sack inside out through that incision, cut the nasty bugger off, and shove it all back in and out). Leaves you very sore for about a solid week.


I was diagnosed with Stage IA (the earliest possible stage) Pure Seminoma. I had the option of going through Radiation Therapy, since all of my tests (PET and CT) indicated that there were no sub centimeter nodes (meaning, there were no abnormally large lymph nodes indicating cancer). The chance of recurrence was less by maybe 15% if I went through the treatment (and 15% is somewhat big when it comes to this) so I went ahead and sucked it up.

Testicular Cancer is now one of the most treatable forms of cancer if caught early enough. Even late Stage II, early Stage III cancer patients are cured! 20 years ago this wasn't the case. I had an Uncle that died before I was born from it and he was in his early 20s. Medicine has just progressed so rapidly in the last 20 years, it is amazing. Still doesn't feel that way to those of us who have lost loved ones to other forms of it (I've lost my mom, grandpa, and grandmother).

I was lucky. A lot of people have a really hard time with the treatment. A lot of nausea plus being exhausted. I was exhausted, but never had "quite" the stomach problems that most have. I've always said that I have a stomach like a goat though. I was eating normally through the entire thing, although food did taste funny. The fatigue did suck though. I've never taken naps or gotten enough sleep (I love caffeine), and I tried to fight going home after treatment and taking naps, but I felt horrible. Once I resigned myself to the fact I had to sleep, I felt much better. The therapy went on for about a month (ended June 4th), and took about 3 weeks afterward before the side effects wore off. The hair on my stomach still hasn't grown back..LOL..I have an exact 'rectangle' there if I let the other hair grow in, which I don't because it looks ridiculous (the machine raises you on a little bed up to this rectangular lense that blasts you with radiation on one side, then rotates around and hits you in the back. You don't feel a thing except for the side effects). I did play pool a few times during this. The treatment has a cumulative effect, meaning, it gets harder on you as it goes along, but towards the end I would go to the pool room after a treatment and hit some balls and try to eat something. I honestly think a lot of it is psychological. In fact, I played with AZ'er VARick a few times during this.

Anyhow, I've been tested once since all this was over and was negative for anything. They will continue to test me every 3 months to make sure nothing is popping up, but the prognosis is good. Emotionally, having this can really freak you out. I know a lot of guys (I'm in a testis cancer support group) who get really depressed and paranoid. The funny thing is, while you're fighting it (like I had the surgery then the radiation) you feel good, because you're doing something to fight. BUT, once that is over you feel suddenly (or at least I did) very....vulnerable, with kind of a "wht do I do now" mentality. Even though there is only a 4% chance you could have it in your remaining testicle, that seems to be the first general fear that someone who goes through this has. I was done with my treatment for about a week, and I myself starting getting a little paranoid about it, but I have a wonderful wife I talk about this with, plus great doctors (who assured me that nothing is wrong) and today....I really feel as good as new, and very blessed! It really feels like this happened to me years ago, even though it has just been months. You go through so much in such a short period of time.

I'm just glad to be alive, and I've learned you can truly just take one day at a time, and do your best on that day. You can't stress about things that are far off - because too much can just happen (in what seems like the blink of an eye).

So, I guess I beat this just to live --- and since I like to play pool, I'll be playing pool...LOL. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
 
I have severe asthma. Talk about embarrassing. I sometimes take my Alupent breathing machine with me into a poolroom. People look at me like I am smoking crack. Basically, everyone thinks allergies are identical to asthma. Two totally different beasts. The flagella in my lungs swell larger, making my oxygen intake lower than normal. Try holding your breath and trying to breath. That's similar. After a short while, you get faint and scared to death. I normally keep an inhaler with me. Nothing is worse than to be playing for the cash and feel so uncomfortable that you don't even want to win. You just want it over so you can go home and take a breathing treatment.
 
My right arm exploded upon impact in a car accident. Surgery put it back together and now I have a steel plate and 9 screws permanently in that arm. I had Radial Palsy for almost a year. Could not move my wrist nor fingers. Lots of painful physical therapy (3+ times a week for a year). I still can not break the balls right.
 
i have it now, i dont know what is wrong with me, i have been in bed for 2.5 years for back pain-which is slightly better in the past month, first time in 30 months, but my hair is falling out of my legs and no new hairs are growing in behind, my eblows and knees are bright red, my head sweats profusely while my body is dry, and other wieird stuff. im not dieing but i'm farr from being well
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top