The lesson here: Never give up hope (and get a second opinion).
IWAS (NEARLY) BLIND…In 1941, when Malcolm Darby of Rutland, England, was two years old, he contracted measles and was left with extremely poor eyesight. Throughout his life, he had to wear thick eyeglasses and could barely see. Then, when Darby was 70, he suffered a stroke. A blood clot lodged in his brain and required surgery.
BUT NOW I SEE. When Darby woke up after the operation, he couldn’t speak, but he could see a nurse in his room carrying a newspaper under her arm. And he saw not only the nurse, but the words printed in the newspaper, clear as day…without his glasses on. Doctors said that it’s not uncommon for patients to lose their eyesight after a stroke, but it’s extremely rare for anyone’s eyesight to improve. Darby has since recovered and is enjoying his new lease on life…except for one thing: “Before the stroke, I could speak French, and now I just can’t get a word of it out.”
I WAS DEAF…Emma Hassell was perfectly healthy—until she had a miscarriage in 2002 and was told that she may never be able to conceive another child. Then, two years later, the 21-year-old British woman got engaged. While getting ready for her engagement dinner, Hassell went upstairs to take a shower when she noticed that her hearing was “muffled.” She heard a loud pop—and then couldn’t hear anything at all. “I remember shouting down to my mum that I was deaf,” she said, “but I don’t know how it happened.” Doctors didn’t, either. They found nothing physically wrong with her ears. Their conclusion: It was psychosomatic. Hassell tried hypnotherapy, counseling, and acupuncture, but she remained completely deaf. For the next six months, she and her fiancé struggled to adjust to her handicap. A week before Christmas, Hassell visited her doctor, who had great news for her: She was pregnant!
BUT NOW I HEAR: That evening, Hassell was home alone watching Will & Grace on television. As she was reading the closed-captioned subtitles, it seemed like she could actually hear the words. She thought her mind was playing tricks on her. Then she started banging on a table and realized she could hear. Elated, she phoned her fiancé: “I can hear! I can hear!” He remained silent. “Now is not the time to be speechless,” she said. Doctors are still at a loss to explain how Hassell lost her hearing…and how she got it back. “I’d been dreading Christmas,” she said, “but not anymore!”
“A question that sometimes drives me hazy: Am I or are the others crazy?”—Albert Einstein
I WAS (HALF) BLIND…While Don Karkos was serving on a Navy tanker in World War II, an explosion sent shrapnel flying into his face. When he woke up in the hospital, he was told that his right eye was permanently blind. Doctors offered to remove it, but Karkos said they might as well keep it in there “for looks.” He returned to his home in Maine and started a family. Having one functioning eye was difficult (he often bumped into walls and other people), but Karkos managed. By the time he was in his 80s, he was still working, tending horses at Monticello Raceway in New York. One day in 2006, he was in the stable adjusting some equipment on a horse named My Buddy Chimo. “I reached underneath his chest,” he recalled. “And when I did, my head was right next to his. All of a sudden, Chimo turned and he whacked me one on the head, and that was it.” It was the hardest that Karkos had been hit since the explosion in 1942.
BUT NOW I SEE. Karkos spent the rest of the day in a haze; nothing seemed “right.” And that night, as he was walking down his hallway, he realized why. He put his hand over his good eye…and he could still see. “Holy s***!” was all he managed to say. The incident became known as the “Monticello Miracle,” and My Buddy Chimo has become a star—people come to the track just to touch him. “I’m getting him a big bag of carrots for Christmas,” Karkos said. “Do you know what a doctor would have charged for this?”
I WAS DEAD…In January 2008, doctors told the family of 65-year-old Raleane “Rae” Kupferschmidt that she was brain-dead. It had been three weeks since she’d suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage, and her vegetative state showed no signs of improving. In keeping with her wishes, a feeding tube was removed and life support was turned off. Given only hours to live, Kupferschmidt was taken to her Lake Elmo, Minnesota, home to die. She lay in her bed while her family gathered and made funeral arrangements.
Many nursing homes and physical therapy centers use the Nintendo Wii for “Wii-habilitation.”
BUT NOW I LIVE: To keep her mother hydrated, Kupferschmidt’s daughter, Lisa Sturm, wet her lips with an ice cube…and the old woman started sucking on it. “I knew suckling is a very basic brain-stem function,” said Sturm, “so I didn’t get real excited. But when I did it again, she just about sucked the ice cube out of my hand. So I leaned down and asked, ‘Mom, are you in there?’” Her mother quietly replied, “Yes.” Sturm nearly fell over in shock. Kupferschmidt was rushed back to the hospital, where doctors drained blood from her skull to relieve pressure on her brain. Within a few weeks, Kupferschmidt was walking on her own and living a normal life again. She remembers almost nothing about her coma, except for: “Angels. They were here to help me, to help me get over this.”
I WAS PARALYZED…In 1988 David Blancarte of Manteca, California, wrecked his motorcycle and ended up in a wheelchair. The former boxer and dancer went into a deep depression, but still managed to move on with life, eventually marrying and having a family. Then, 21 years after his accident, Blancarte, 48, was reportedly bitten by a poisonous brown recluse spider in his California home.
BUT NOW I WALK. The bite sent Blancarte to a hospital, where a nurse noticed his legs twitching. After he was treated for the bite, the nurse enrolled Blancarte in a physical therapy program…and he slowly learned to walk again. A local TV station latched onto the story and within weeks, headlines all over the world read: “SPIDER BITE HEALS PARAPLEGIC!” News anchors hailed it as a “medical miracle” that “offers a ray of hope to others who are paralyzed.”
ACTUALLY…The spider bite (which was never even confirmed—brown recluses don’t live in California) had little to do with Blancarte’s recovery except to get him to the hospital, where the astute nurse noticed that the nerves in his legs were still working. And, adding insult to recovery, the media frenzy attracted the attention of police—who arrested Blancarte on an outstanding warrant for domestic abuse. But at least he learned to walk again, which is nice.
A computer program designed to grade school essays gave Ernest Hemingway a failing grade.