Right Place, Right time.

It was a day just like any other. Okay you caught me, it was a day unlike any I had expierienced before. it didn't even start out normal. My grand day started out with me peeing in a film container. Remember the old days when cameras actually used film? Yeah I woke up and peed in a container of film, minus the film.

At this point everyone reading this asks, 'Dustin, where are you going with this?' Just wait, I promise there's a point. So I nearly successfully peed into this wee container, getting only a little on my hands when I sleepily realized the container would not contain all that I had to give. Whatever, soap is a grand thing. I put the lid on the canister and washed my hands thoroughly. I mean c'mon it would be gross if i didn't.

The best part about this is I then got dressed and put said container in my pocket. Then it was off to town with Mom and about an ounce of urine in my jeans pocket. It was 'Physical day.' Ah yes, the day once a year where boys and girls are poked and prodded and asked very embarassing questions about themselves. "Do you use drugs? Are you sexually active? Blah blah blah." These questions are made even more embarrassing when asked by a female nurse/doctor/whatever she was.

There are other people who herd you along like cattle, pressing on your arms and legs, checking muscles and joints for strength and even making you do 'the duck walk.' The Duck Walk is a creation made up in the minds of doctors to further humiliate adolescents. One must squat down, walk forward with your arms tucked in, in the manner of a duck. I suppose this is to test balance or some such, but people still get to see you through the only slightly closed curtain.

After all this it's time for the 'big show.' Everyone knows about the 'big show.' Boys come out of the doctor's room with that horrified look on their face, well at least the first-timers do. Those who have been there before show mild irritation. Of course the 'big show' is hernia check time. Sure we all shower together and the like, but exposing yourself to someone so they can poke and prod is obviously something of another matter altogether. i dare not even imagine what happens to the girls.

This not being my first rodeo I proudly hand my vial of urine to the lady who seemed perhaps slightly too eager to receive it. I then continued to the pokings and proddings and the questions all the way to the end. The 'big show' was quite different this time, afterwards the Doctor asked me if I came with a parent. I told him yes, and I was then asked to go get them.

As I walked down the hallway to the waiting room I couldn't help but think how abnormal this was. No Doctor had ever asked this of me, it was something that, ironically, got my heart beating a little faster. I went out to the waiting room where Mom seemed to be in a lively conversation with some other ladies, presumably waiting for their children. When I told her the Doc wanted to see her everyone had the 'uh-oh' look on their faces. At the time I wasn't too worried. i was going to be a sophomore in high school, what could possibly be wrong?

The rest of this part has gone fairly blank for me, I just remember the doctor pointing at my chest and saying some words which really seemed to bother Mom. From there he let us go with a nod and a wink.

Well I played basketball that year sat on the bench most of the year, as I was not as agressive as I needed to be. Whatever I still loved it. Every minute of being part of that team. We had a miserable season but we all had fun. That it turns out is really what mattered. That summer I played at 'the court' with Eric and Brian, working on skills determined to at least sit Varsity that year. Then I was told we were going to Bismark for a visit to a specialist. Great.

I remember lying in a dark room with this really attractive tech chick, taking pictures and measurements of my Aorta. I could almost swear she could feel how fast my heart was beating. Anyway! The Echo-cardiogram was done and we waited for the doctor to view it. Talk about agony, minutes ticked by like days. Then we were called back to the first room we were in. That's when the fecalation collided with the rotary oscillator. (You get the idea, if you don't look up the words you don't know.)

I was at that point told I had Marfan's Syndrome, which is a whole mess of stuff that basically says any active lifestyle you once thought you'd have is now kaput, done, finished. I remember being so angry all that could come out was tears, because knocking out a Physician is generally frowned upon.

Now the reader asks 'How does this put you in the right place at the right time?!' Well here's the thing. I could have continued down the path I was headed for, playing basketball the rest of my high school career, more than likely joining the military. I also could have died tragically on the Basketball Court my Junior year and never again been able to bring the joy to people that I do today. I mean where would the world be without my witticism or takes on the mundane in life? Boring that's where the world of my loved ones would be. So because of that fateful 'peeing in a film can' day I am here, alive, well, to love, be loved and to be terribly witty, to the amusement of all.