"Adversity does not build character, it reveals it."
-James Lane Allen
My brother is a super hero. We call him the “swiminator,” but he wouldn’t have earned that nickname if not for a whole host of life-changing events. It’s been said that one moment can shift your whole universe into a different direction. For my youngest brother Madox, his entire life changed at the age of eight. At the time, he was pretty much your perfect image of the All-American kid. Flag-football quarterback, Little League pitcher, AYSO soccer mid-center. Having three older siblings made him tough, witty, and incredibly active. Madox would end up at the bottom of a dog-pile of his older brothers and their friends, and come out of it laughing hysterically. He and I would climb trees together all the time, and terrify my mom with how high up we would get. Looking back on it, I probably shouldn't have taken a first grader up to the top branches, but he was so fearless I didn't really think twice about it.
In January of his second grade year, he started having pains in his right thigh. Multiple doctors said that it was a strained muscle, and my family took on the saying “suck it up, buttercup.” The pain didn't get better for two months, and my mom took him to an orthopedic specialist. After X-raying his right side, the doctor broke the news that Madox has Legg-Calve Perthes disease, a rare onset in which his right hip does not get any blood circulation. His referred thigh pain had been a result of fragmentation of his hip bone, as the femoral head cracks and eventually disintegrates, and the surrounding muscles atrophy. Friday night he played flag football, Saturday he pitched in a baseball game, and on Monday he was in a wheelchair. He hasn't walked since.
The transition was hard for us. I felt sick to my stomach, watching my lively, athletic brother use a wheelchair to get around. But this kid took it in stride. The second day after he got it, he was attempting wheelies. We all got used to the wheelchair, but his struggle hadn't even begun.
On July 8, 2014, Madox had a surgery that cut and lengthened the muscles around his hip. For twelve weeks during the summer before my sophomore year, he laid in a hospital bed in my living room, in a full waist-down cast with a bar in between the legs so that he couldn't move. The first few days at the hospital were the worst. He threw up and cried so much; I couldn't handle seeing it. When we brought him home, those next two weeks were horrible. He screamed and refused to take his medicine. We had to plead and bribe and force the stuff down his throat. As awful as it was to live it, looking back, I pull fond memories from it. My whole family came together to help out. I took nights, laying on the floor right next to his hospital bed, because the couch was too far away from him. I didn't really sleep, because he cried pretty much constantly, as the incision healed and his muscles spasmed to adjust to legs that were spread 90 degrees apart. Merek (my middle brother) and I would rub his little feet, sticking out at the end of his orange and blue cast. After a little while, Mason (the oldest brother - we're a big family) took over nights, because what Madox really needed at that point was just someone near him, as he was terrified to sleep in a room alone. Mason sleeps like a zombie, and was perfectly content to pass out on the couch for the rest of the summer. He stayed with Madox a lot, and helped tackle the task of keeping a sitting child entertained throughout the day. My parents were incredible, despite the emotional strain of having a child whose personality you don’t recognize.
Madox was angry, sad, and irritable for a long time. However, his real character came out, as by the 8 week mark, when the incision had healed, he was using his upper body to pull himself around the house (even up the stairs, despite my mom’s objections). He would flip over onto his hands, and I would hold the end of his cast and wheelbarrow him from room to room. Those few months were emotionally and physically draining, but I look back on them fondly, because of the things they brought out in my family.
It’s been two years since then, and he’s either in a wheelchair or on crutches, as long as he does not put any weight on his right leg. Madox took up piano, and our nights are filled with him playing piano, Merek playing the guitar, and me singing. My athletic brother is now a swimming stud, as he crutches over to the side of the pool and then dives in, moving in the water just the same as everyone else, with twice the amount of heart. He’s tan, lean, and blonde streaked. I’ll never forget when I took him to his first swim practice, and he went up to his coach afterwards and said, “thank you for letting me be part of your team,” as if he thought the kid in a wheelchair wouldn't be allowed to.
The huge change in his life affected us all, and at the end of the day, I’m glad, because without what’s happened, he wouldn't be yelling at me right now to come to the piano. He wants to teach me the Star Wars theme song.
