Dr. Ronald Hull’s memoir, starting with his childhood, is a tale of bravery and persistence through trials that would make ordinary men despair. From early on, he dealt with undiagnosed and increasing paralysis. He eventually had to be aware of everything he did: getting into and out of buildings, opening doors, and trying to avoid falls in his own home. And yet he pushed for normalcy the whole while, getting an advanced education and pursuing jobs and extracurricular activities, sometimes fighting loneliness and preconceived ideas of his abilities to work and function.
Excerpt:
I got an interview with Daniel Construction of Greenville, South Carolina. The guy doing the hiring was a West Virginia graduate. The job was training director for a pumped storage facility to be built in the Virginia Mountains. At the end of the interview that went well, the interviewer told me that it was too dangerous for me to work the project, that I'd likely have an accident on the road between my housing and the construction site. I had driven most of the roads in that area of the Appalachians and mountain roads all over the West, and had encountered every kind of road and weather condition, including confronting lumber and coal trucks. I never had any trouble. He presumed a lot about my driving ability and my physical ability to do the job. I shook off my disappointment, knowing that I didn't want to work for people who doubted my ability based on my disability.
I don't think most of us could conceive of the problems that lack of physical control brings. Ron describes simple acts of showering and putting on socks, driving, cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping, that many people would have given up on. Not him. He traveled, often without help driving and managing his luggage, and saw much of the country. He water skiied with his own innovative way of holding the ski bar; he rock climbed; he encountered nature in ways that made this reader want to scream “No, don't do that!” And he wrote, sometimes typing with one finger, learning more about computers than many of us will ever know, and gaining a masterful knowledge of voice activated programs.
The everyday problems of life that frustrate us—car problems, yard and house upkeep, paying bills—were all challenges that he had to find unique ways of dealing with, and he did, with a determination and extraordinary drive. Ron's detailed descriptions of solving the problems of routine daily activities, sometimes with painful or damaging consequences, is nothing short of heroic. He is brutally honest and straightforward in his efforts to accept what soon became the inevitable. But everyday he got out of bed early to allow the extra time it took to get to school and later to work, becoming an instructor at the graduate level until he finally retired.
An excerpt shows how complicated a morning could get:
With the dishes pushed to the sink, and water run on them to carry the larger pieces to the disposer, I'd return to the bedroom, careful, as I rounded the stair, to get a good grip with the inside of my wrist on the stair rail. Often, I made unscheduled trips to the bathroom to urinate or worse. My bowel control had become so bad that a sudden urge would send me careening for the bathroom in a race to see what would get there first, me or the bowel movement. Sometimes, I wouldn't make it. Cleaning up was very difficult, especially since I could no longer bend down. First, I'd have to secure the dog outside, and then make several trips for cleaning supplies, and then spend whatever time required cleaning up on my knees with plastic pails and chairs to hold my supplies. Then, I'd have to shower again to clean myself up.
The future brought increasing difficulties, and imaginative ways of dealing with the problems that often took him by surprise. When Beh came into his life, everything changed for the better, and they have supported each other equally for many years now, while other caregivers came and went. HANGING BY A THREAD is Dr. Hull's fifth book, along with two collections of short stories, poetry, articles, and technical writings. I highly recommend this book chronicling Ron's plight; you will be enthralled by his incredible successes and adventures.
Share
Save
