Blind Perspective

Blind Perspective

Kristyn A. Wagner

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: 1-800-839-8640

This is a fictional novel based on real events in the life of Kristyn Wagner

© 2011 by Kristyn A. Wagner. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 11/04/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4634-2675-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4634-2676-7 (ebk)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011910526

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Acknowledgements

The Beginning

Future Plans

Identity

Preparation

Competition

Aftermath

Less Than A Blink

Rubble

Shattered?

Hope Exists

Pressure & Pain

Surgery

Where am I?

Broken

New Ordinary

Doctors

Torture

Help

Hope

Home

Athletic Banquet

Reality

Magic

Commencement

Time to Think

Prom

Change

Goodbye

Shock

Epilogue—Triumph over tragedy

About the Author

To My loving family and friends that pulled me through, and to you for taking the time to read this story

Acknowledgements

This book could not have come to life without so many people. I would like to thank the following people for their contributions to this book:

To my mother, Karen Wagner, who read and re-read my writing before dreams of a book had even materialized.

To my father, Richard Wagner, who supported the idea of a book even though it was abstract territory.

To my brother, Ryan Wagner, for always encouraging me to follow my dreams but also bring me back to reality.

To my sister, Rachel Wagner, who reminds me everyday to be a child and enjoy every second.

To one of my best friends, Jessica Tombs, for always being there no matter the time or how much drool.

To my many friends who were there for me when I needed you: my real prom date, the grounder boys, my badminton partner, and all my girls who supported me.

To David Feltmate, my first editor who didn’t laugh at my sentences that didn’t make sense but fixed them and also provided me with writers’ insight, which I lacked.

To Julia Kibble, the creative and talented photographer behind the cover picture.

To Dr. Rootman and his team, who have helped me in this journey.

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared

to comprehend

—Robertson Davies

The Beginning

I don’t know much,

but I do know more than

I knew yesterday.

We all think we’re normal. Or at least we think we know what normal is. But truth be told, normal only relates to our immediate life and who we know. Normal isn’t what we see in magazines, on the TV screen, or pasted all over media and our world as we know it. We think normal is what is closest to us, our friends, family, and who we see at school. All I know is that ten months ago I thought I was normal, and now, let’s just say I’m not so ‘normal’ after all.

My life was great. I walked the halls of Billa-Aid High School like I owned the place. I thought I was ‘it and a bit.’ Now, don’t get me wrong; I wasn’t the most popular, but I was happy and comfortable with who I was and lived my life like that every day. After all, this was my last year of high school and I would make the most of it. I took almost everything in my life for granted; I mean, why wouldn’t I? It was all I had ever known. I had a course load that I could dominate so my grades would be excellent for university. I was taking some business, science, math, and history just to keep my options open. My teachers knew who I was because of Carter, my academic genius brother who came before me. Sure they had high expectations for me, but I survived and I held up the family tradition. I wasn’t reaching Carter’s academic genius status but I was sustaining the grades I needed, so I would be able to get into any program I wanted.

It was university response time and I started hearing from Western, Laurier, Waterloo, Guelph, Simon Fraser, University of British Columbia, Brock, and every other school I thought to apply to. That’s right, I was a completely clueless adolescent when it came to my future plans. I just wanted to live my life and see how it would end up… all this planning threw me off. I didn’t want to be stuck in one repetitive occupation for the rest of my life. The problem with me wasn’t that I wasn’t motivated enough; it was that I couldn’t narrow down my options. I wanted every future out there. Paramedic sounded fun, but so did teacher, doctor, businesswoman, marine biologist, actress, science research assistant, sports announcer, and every other job. They all appealed to me! I wanted to do it all and be it all. That’s kind of the same way I treated my friends and family.

My friend Anabeth once referred to me as a ‘friend whore.’ Okay, I know a whore is a bad thing and not something you want to be known as, but what in the world is a friend whore? So I asked her to break it down for me. She said that having so many friends at one time made me a ‘friend whore.’ I could only stare at her in puzzlement.

‘You have friends everywhere you go and you are just so nice to everybody that even people who don’t know you and only see your actions want to be your friend and invite you to things, making you a friend whore. You steal all the friends out there for us lonely people.’ Anabeth finished her spiel, ‘It’s a good thing, and it’s just amazing to watch how people are all drawn to you. I like sticking with one or two friends I can really trust. You cannot possibly feel close to all of the different people who call you their friend. It seems like a lot of shallow surface relationships.’

Wow. I didn’t really know how to respond to this, but then I thought about my life and I realized I did have a lot of friends. I mean, if I were to have my wedding I would have no idea who my bridesmaids would be, let alone who would be invited. I seemed to share little bits of myself with lots of different groups, but never trusted my whole self with just one person. Good thing I wanted my wedding at Leeds Castle; I’m sure that could fit quite a few of us! Leeds Castle was a gorgeous castle I had seen when I was younger and I couldn’t seem to shake that beautiful image out of my head for my wedding. The castle was in England, which would pose some difficulties later since I lived in Canada.

When you’re a child and everything you could ever imagine feels like it could come true, Leeds Castle was the perfect place for my wedding. I sometimes still think like a naive child who believes that everything will always work out and nothing bad can ever happen. I like to hold on to the innocence of a child and push the thoughts that couldn’t be perfect out of my head. In my mind I was still a child, playing princess in a world where everything worked out happily ever after.

I got to thinking about what Anabeth said, and I realized I wasn’t a friend whore because I had multiple shallow relationships. I was a friend whore because I cared about everybody’s story and genuinely listened to every single person no matter who they were. Plus the fact that I was busy 24/7 and joined every club and every team helped me meet people pretty fast. It just made it hard to stay in deep relationships and continue to be ‘best’ friends with all of them. I did have my close friends that I would tell most everything to and have fun just sitting around doing nothing with.

I think that when you call up a friend to do nothing, that is when you are truly friends on a new level—that and being able to fart in front of a friend or not be ridiculously polite, just being comfortable with yourself. Friends that you truly believe would be there for you no matter if you didn’t shower that day are friends that mean so much more than words can explain. Those friends are very rare and should be cherished.

I had a tendency to not care about others’ opinions of me, or maybe I just became so used to pleasing other people that others became comfortable around me. This allowed me to meet many people and begin those ‘shallow’ relationships. I did maintain some shallow relationships, but I don’t know if that was a bad thing; I just enjoyed being a part of something bigger than me. Joining every club and being able to smile and say hi to everybody was something I truly enjoyed! Those shallow smiles made me feel accepted and loved, and they made me feel like I belonged.

I was a member of almost every club at our school; I was co-president for two years in DECA (a business club, DECA stands for Developing Excellence, Celebrating Achievement); running an environment club; an arts and crafts creator; BIN (Bill Intramural Network) member; Aid Beat (our school newspaper) article writer; and I would help out wherever was needed. I even worked a job at the pool teaching children how to swim and lifeguarding. I was also a sports nut. That’s where my real identity came in. When people talked about me they would say, ‘Oh yeah, that Riley girl she does everything, and does it with a smile, but man, does she play sports.’ Or at least that’s the identity I wanted everybody to believe. I wanted to be known as the happy, positive, unbreakable athlete.

I was known as the most athletic child out of the three children in my family, and soon enough I wasn’t just the athletic one to everybody else, I was ‘the athletic one’ to me. It was where I seemed to fit in and be noticed. So I had to continue with my athletic identity if I wanted to exist. I mean, sure, everybody else kind of tells you who you are, and that is one way our identities are made. The self-fulfilling prophecy is when others choose for us and we chase their beliefs in order to gain our identity. I just got lucky that somebody chose such good traits for me to build my identity on.

It was spring, and all the snow was melting away. People started busting out the shorts and their pasty white legs to go with them. School had a changing atmosphere. People were busy, and I mean everybody. There was a buzz in the halls. People would rush home just so they could go outside and throw a football around with some buddies or make some lemonade. The malls were packed with summer and spring clothes and winter jackets and skis were on sale at half price. Everybody could sense summer getting closer! My graduating class was receiving our university and college application responses and some kids were marking out their futures and picking schools. Kids were responding to their applications and then going out and buying dorm sheets to celebrate. Me, on the other hand, I was waiting for the very last minute. I had no idea and I felt that rushing the decision would just make it be the wrong one. Sure, it’s a little bit frustrating when you turn on your computer and your Facebook home page is filled with ‘Waterloo, here I come’, ‘Guelph, can’t wait to get there’, ‘Laurier, you’re officially mine!’ ‘Accepted to Waterloo? Really, I agreed before they changed their mind!’ and other ‘decision made’ quotes that emphasize how you have very little time to decide the rest of your life. What did I do to distract myself from all the caving-in pressures of the world? Well, I did what I do best. I kept busy and pushed those worrisome thoughts out of my fairytale.

I was playing badminton with my partner Miles when I decided I would try out for rugby just because it was one sport I had never tried. The swim team was still practicing bright and early because, after all, we made it to CWOSSA, the regional competition. I had three school sports on the go and I still felt like I had lots of time to think about my crumbling future. I continued to play rep basketball, too.

My day would consist of waking up early, which consisted of going to the pool at such ridiculous hours that the sun even knows it’s too early and hasn’t come up yet; then I would rush to class for the morning; eat lunch with ‘my grounder boys’ and our friends (I’ll explain them in a bit); help out with intramurals or run a DECA meeting or make a poster depending on the day; and finally go to class for a