Light and Shade
by Casey Flynn

'All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life are made up of light and shade.'

'Anna Karenina' I, ch.11 Leo Tolstoy

Part I

Chapter 1

I was in the doctor's office, sitting in a room waiting for the doctor. After thumbing through some old magazines, and finding nothing of interest, I noticed something on the walls that sparked my attention. Various photographs depicted a crew race on the Potomac River: the eight-man boats racing on the bluish-green waters; the long oars of the respective boats either had their blades submerged in the water or were hanging just above the water; the boats were moving beyond the white-stone arch openings of the Key Bridge, and in the background of the crew race, the green foliage of the riverbank led up the bluffs to the walls of Georgetown University with its gray towers jutting towards the heavens.

Stirred by these images, and probably as well to help reconstruct the events of that fateful fall day for my discussion with the neurologist today, my mind trailed off ...

When the cool touch of the riggings were lowered onto the eight shoulders, the weight of the fiberglass crew boat became more tolerable. I stiffened my back, as the coxswain directed us to back-pedal several steps. Coach Nanook's familiar, 'All right let's get these boats into the water' could be heard down by the dock. Our heavy steps moved down the pavement towards the mist of the river until the coxswain paused us before the dock; the first eight splashed their boat into the water. The rusty pistons of Coach Nanook's motor boat revved and revved and then sputtered. He vigorously pulled the chord, causing the engine to shriek, which was an unsettling sound that jarred us out of our early morning stupor.

I adjusted my weight onto my left leg; it felt tight, but without any inkling of discomfort in my left hamstring that had been sore the last few days. A light drizzle accentuated the daybreak chill, grimly blackened the bark of the nearby trees, and caused goose bumps to flush down my legs - undoubtedly deadening the feeling of yesterday's discomfort. So as the coxswain gave the word, I felt my legs limber up as we descended down the slippery boards of the dock.

At the edge of the dock, my legs stiffened, as the weight of the crew boat dug into my shoulders, while the other four heavyweight novices awkwardly crossed under the sheen underbelly. The four then repositioned themselves to shoulder some of the weight of the boat, as we waited for the coxswain's signal.
'And lower.'
The eight of us then very carefully lowered the boat into the dark waters of the Potomac - the care was taken not out of deference for the rather expensive piece of craftsmanship, but rather to keep the cold water from spraying us, like a cold shower on a winter's morning. As the coxswain held the boat, we went to retrieve our eight oars. Carrying them properly by the blade, we returned to the boat and slid and secured the respective oars into the riggings. With the oars balancing the boat, the coxswain was allowed to remove his hand. I stepped away and began to take off my shoes and socks. My shivering hands – protectively in a fist - struggled to pull off my drenched second sock, seemingly barnacled to my skin, while I hopped on one foot to avoid the shifting spill of the cool water on the dock.

Suddenly I felt an almost imperceptible twinge in my left hamstring, causing my pale white feet to momentarily freeze on the sodden wooden texture. 'Hurry up - it's freakin' cold,' the coxswain of the third eight urged. Ignoring protocol, their boat began peremptorily to move down the dock. Coach Nanook had finally started the launch and the creaky engine was lurking.

I thought for a moment that I really should skip practice today and rest up for a few days, but I felt the strong pull of the herd as my fellow novices sat in the boat and began to tie their feet into the nailed-in running shoes. In a sudden panic, my mind raced to identify whether there was an actual problem with my left hamstring or just tightness and soreness that was of no consequence.

'Hurry the hell up - O'Toole!'
'C'mon!'
With a hopeful shrug, I fell into my spot in the eight-person crew boat - port four, and felt suddenly uneasy. I anxiously and deliberately tied my feet into the nailed-in black running shoes. We pushed off, and falling into our usual routine; our steady arms rowed us with straight back and legs out into the increasingly opaque early morning fog. And as I sat there, churning my oar, my mind broodingly hamstrung between these two thoughts: you're imagining this, a good workout will loosen up the muscle or you're going to hurt yourself . . . I began to wonder, through chattering teeth, why I had voluntarily come out here at six in the morning in this steady rain to do such manual exercise . . . ahh yes Olivia!

I had come to Georgetown University two weeks into the semester off the waiting list. I had already begun school at one of those directional state universities. I was already starting to suspect that the directional state university experience was not for me. I had walked into some random house and asked directions on how to get to the bookstore. It turned out that I had happened upon a pledge party for the Sigma Chis. The next thing I know, I was filled up with grain alcohol, tied to the back of a pickup truck, and dragged through a cornfield. Curiously, I was asked to pledge the fraternity five days later.

But as fate would have it, I received a call from the admission's office of Georgetown University. After removing a kernel of corn from my ear, I heard the good news.
'Francis Joseph Toole?'
'Yes?'
'A spot has opened up in the School of Foreign Service, and you're the next name on the waiting list. Still interested?'
I said that I was.
They asked me how long it would take me to get there. 'The time it would take to pack and drive there,' I replied.
The person informed me that three other people had already turned down the opening based on considerations of logistics.
'Well I guess it's my good luck then,' I said.
'Congratulations welcome to the class of 1993.'

I had been told that to be wait-listed was synonymous with 'rejection,' so this was unexpected, though not entirely. I had received a letter in August from Georgetown University requesting my contact information. This was done without explanation and the letter stated that they were asking this for everyone on the waiting list. After I put down the phone, I headed over to the bathroom.

I took off my wire-rimmed glasses and proceeded to wash my face with soap and water, all the while teeming with this adrenaline-pumping exhilaration and periodically uttering a 'Whew!' I took a towel and dried off my face. I looked into the mirror and thought I appeared slightly taller than the 6'5' that I had been measured at my senior year of high school - perhaps by an inch. I looked back at my grayish-green eyes, freckled pale complexion and thick, meshy, light brown hair. Maybe my bushy, unkempt hair was making me appear taller. After drying my face, I put my glasses back on and looked back at myself in the mirror. This was big, I thought, the back door of that university had unexpectedly swung open for me. Just looking at this event in terms of the scale of my own life, I was having a 1066-Norman-conquest moment; that is, the arc of my life had just taken a radically-different direction.

I began to pack in earnest. It was good that I was the type of person who could gather up all their earthly possessions and throw them in the back of their car and it would take under an hour. In fact, I would have finished a lot quicker than that, but I needed to buy the essential snack food for the road trip. When I had finally gotten everything together, I went around and said goodbye to some of the friends I had made in those first few days at that university. The Sigma Chis, understandably, took it hard. I told my pledge class that if I ever had to be locked in the back of a trunk of a Buick Skylark, deliriously drunk, with a malfunctioning lock again, it would be with you guys.

In many ways, I had worked hard the last two years at my Jesuit high school in St. Louis, Missouri for just this result. I was sitting in the high school guidance counselor's office when I first saw the brochure for Georgetown University, and specifically on page two, a fair skin beauty with flowing auburn hair reading a copy of French poems (I probably projected the contents of the book) in the Quad.
I gestured to the brochure.
'I want to go here.'
'It's gonna be a stretch,' the guidance counselor replied with an expression that conveyed his intent to be both helpful, but candid. 'Don't get me wrong, it's good to have stretch schools.' But then he explained, citing chapter and verse, how difficult it in fact was to get into the so-called 'selective schools.' I looked down at the brochure, inwardly bristling at the idea that anything was 'a stretch' or out of reach. He then tried to sell me on one of these directional state universities, where I had a better chance at acceptance, scholarship, and getting filled up with grain alcohol, tied to the back of a pickup truck, and dragged through a cornfield, while someone in a loudspeaker in the back of the pickup truck declared repeatedly: 'This is not technically hazing.'

Because it had been considered by everyone such a stretch, I had a definite sense of excitement that night at around two in the morning when I first arrived at Georgetown. I had driven through the corn and wheat fields of Illinois and Indiana, the industrial rust belt of Eastern Ohio and southern Pennsylvania, along interstate 70, up the picturesque, and surprisingly steep Appalachian mountains. By the time I came down from the mountains, I refueled and ate at Breezewood, Pennsylvania and then turned south. I cruised through the flatter planes of Maryland at over 80-miles-an hour, staying awake by nursing a 82 oz. Mountain Dew, listening to an oldies station, singing along to certain favorite lyrics. The yawns were coming with greater frequency, and a growing sleepiness weighed on my eyelids, but there was an offsetting sense of anticipation that began to noticeably spark up as the posted mileage to D.C. rapidly decreased. I had seen the brochure, but never the actual campus. And then like that, I was close, I pulled out the map and turned onto the George Washington Parkway. Narrowing my eyes on the map and then the exit sign, I found myself on the Key bridge; I looked over at the nation's capitol with its stone monuments reflecting in a white light, and that stir of anticipation that had been with me since the heartland blossomed into a pleasurable smile as I thought, 'Alright, that's awesome,' but I was too focused on the map and the approaching street to get a good view of the city.

I turned onto 'M' St. in downtown Georgetown. The balmy night air, the noise of the revelers, and the bright lights of the bars and restaurants eradicated any lingering drowsiness that had been with me since leaving the Appalachian Mountains. I made a turn off Wisconsin and headed towards the campus. I glanced one last time at the address, and then slowly motored ahead, regarding the impressive brick row houses, ornate mansions, and townhouses, which hinted at various historical periods and a degree of wealth and architectural sophistication that was in stark contrast to the ranch-style of suburbia.

I could not yet see the campus, and I began to wonder whether I had taken a wrong turn. But just then, I began to notice along the tree-lined sidewalks students with book bag slung over their shoulders, or in one case a beer keg. I knew that the students meant the campus was near, much like seagulls signaling the presence of land to a ship long at sea, and not unlike a weary sailor, I felt a sudden surge of excitement. And in contrast to the houses before, that were quiet, dark, with undoubtedly sleeping inhabitants, the row houses and dorm apartments were well-lit, loud with talking and music, and bursting forth a contagious energy.

And then I made a turn, and I saw up ahead the front gates, and there it was. Though most of the front campus behind the gates was shrouded in darkness, I could see this massive Gothic building with a dark gray clock tower with golden hands set against the night sky. Then came the sound of chimes from the clock tower, and I heard laughter and shouting as groups of people walked by my car idling at the front gates.

And then I looked over, and what do you know I noticed a fair-skinned lady, with brown yes perhaps even auburn hair walking through the gates holding a textbook that possibly could be a French language textbook. I then pulled out the now mostly crumbled up and slightly defaced brochure, which I had kept as both a reminder of a vague societal slight and an incentive for my journey here, and compared the two pictures before concluding, 'It checks out.' I then fully crumbled up the paper in my fist and discarded it to the curb, not giving it another thought.

After moving in, it became woefully apparent that I didn't have nearly enough financial aid to cover my tuition bill and room-and-board. I quickly got a job as a security guard and wrote an appeal letter regarding my financial aid award. I was told in all honesty that it did not look promising because I was presently receiving the maximum benefit for the group that I qualified for. Luckily, a staff person in the office, a fellow Midwesterner, took the time to show me how to put the right buzzwords into my appeal letter. Unfortunately, someone else made the actual decision, and he had nothing to do with the actual decision. When I turned in the letter to one of the staffers at the financial aid office, I asked - I thought politely - when would the decision be made and how would this effect my registration. She responded brusquely, 'we're working as quickly as possible,' and walked away.

The next day, I assumed hopefully that it would all work out and went to meet my 'Big Sister'. At breakfast, I was introduced to my big sister, a person appointed as part of my orientation to show me the ropes around campus. From the moment I saw her, what was her name, ahh yes Olivia, Olivia something, she was a vision of beauty, and well she was tall, and you see, I went to an all-male Jesuit high school, and the circles that I ran in really didn't have any girls. In fact, I really didn't know any girls, though I knew of their existence. They were rumored to roam in the all-girl Catholic schools up in the surrounding hills. Indeed, the Catholic school system where I came from follows a apartheid model, separating boys and girls at the high school level. Every so now and then, I would meet a girl who would stray into my world, but mainly they were foreign, exotic, netherworldly, soft, pure . . . biblically-speaking, the forbidden fruit.

She read my name off the memo.
'Francis Joseph Toole . . . uhm School of Foreign Service '93?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Is that you?'
'Uh-huh.'
'Well I'm Olivia,' she said brightly. 'I'm part of the University's Big Brother/Big Sister program to show the new freshman around. If you want, you could go out drinking with my friends, and we could answer all your questions?'
'Uh-huh.'

In the next few nights, we went out and we had a few drinks, and she would talk, and her friends with talk about certain professors and classes, and I would mainly listen, rapt with attention, regarding her pretty features, and interject here and there, 'Uh-huh.'

Then one night, she unexpectedly invited me back to her dorm room. Would we hold hands?

I walked into her dorm room with a good deal of anticipation and perhaps even experiencing a modicum of Celtic fear of damnation . . . when her boyfriend stepped out of the shadow of the desk area, greeted her affectionately, and they both hugged lovingly. We sat around and talked for about an hour, mostly about what my professors were like for my various classes; yep, that discussion was getting sort of old, I thought irritably. Then a curious expression crossed the boyfriend's face.
'How tall are you?'
'When I stand up straight?'
'Yeah.'
'Around 6' 5.'
'You know, people that are tall have a natural advantage in rowing crew.'
'Jeff's on the crew team,' Olivia said, regarding him appreciatively, 'You know, you might want to think about giving that a shot.'
He then gave me a sales pitch on the merits of joining the novice crew team, like he did, himself, two years before. But when he mentioned the benefits of waking up at six in the morning and starting your day with a great work out, I did a very poor job of containing my smile and a roll of my eyes. I recalled that one time I had to wake-up at 5:45 in the morning; in those first minutes, I felt a combination of terror and bewilderment, but I sucked it up and trudged out of my bedroom into the world of morning like a soldier leaving the trench for No Man's Land on the Western Front, and went over to the shower, and the cold shower felt like a spray of bullets to my shivering soul. Actually, the more I think about it, it was much worse than that, and I reminded myself never to think about that morning again. I mean, I know morning people, and I have nothing against them, but it is fair to point out that most of Hitler's inner circle were morning people. I politely declined the suggestion to join the crew team, and I said my plans were actually to go out and have a little fun and probably go to bed around six in the morning. They replied that they totally understood and said that the first semester of college was ideal for this ('and potentially, all of college,' he added). As I walked out of the room, I looked back and noticed that Olivia was lovingly snuggled into the arms of her boyfriend wearing his gray crew sweatshirt.

In the second week of crew practice, we went into the water. The eight-person crew boats were precariously-balanced, that is, if you shift your weight slightly, the boat would tilt dramatically towards the water. It was sort of like sitting on a chair that was resting on a medicine ball. As a result, for the novice program, two eights were hitched onto a wooden flotation device. Sixteen of us were then put into this more stable boat where we would learn the stroke, which could be dissected into three parts: push of the legs, tilt of the back, and through with the arms. I was surprised that crew was such the leg-driven, conditioning exercise. I had imagined it to be more of the Roman galley, arm-pulling to the beat of the drums, alongside exchange students from Carthage and Thrace sort of experience. Instead, I found myself, pushing off breathlessly with my legs, while our coach or one of the senior rowers - walking along the plank between the boats, advised us on technique.

On the final day of working with this training wheel of a buoy, a rower ahead of me caught a 'crab', that is, his oar somehow was incorrectly placed in the water, and as a result, it was sucked underneath the boat, causing the handle to fly wildly in front of the rower until he wrestled control of it. It happened a lot, and usually the rower could recover, but on this occasion, my boat - even with the buoy - rocked so dramatically that water began filling up in the shell until - within ten minutes - both boats were submerged about three feet underwater.

It was a bright late Saturday morning in September, and we were floating halfway between the Roosevelt Bridge and the Georgetown boathouse. Normally the Potomac can be quite filthy this close to the city, but the bright sun drew the blue out of the water and warmed the top layer, leaving my spent, overheated leg muscles to languish in the murky coolness. We were told that a motor boat was on its way to pick us up.

While waiting - and very much in the spirit of D.C. partisanship, one rower angrily accused 'Hey-you-over-there' of capsizing the boat, but he was looking at three different rowers, each who equally fit the description of 'Hey-you-over-there.' They fired back that if you guys had not been so incompetent and steadied the boat, this would have never happened.

'Incompetent, that's not what your mother said when she left my dorm room this morning!'

I dismally shook my head, thinking, not this again. Though only 'Hey-you-over-there's' mother was defamed, within no time, the name of everyone's mother was one by one dragged into the shouting match until the insults became so venomous that our coxswain Eddie was described as the no good deformed, midget offspring of any one of the several one-legged syphilitic crack whores working the Greyhound bus depot down from Union Station. Eddie responded with a blush and a stammer, and two of his friends began to throw punches.

A splash fight ensued, and though it was sparked by juvenile rancor, it in no time transformed into a hilarious splashing romp where everyone took their shot at trying to drown Eddie that no good deformed midget . . . But the motor boat arrived, and in groups of four, they began to transport us back to the boathouse.

After allowing my legs to float up, I reclined back and took in the monuments of Washington D.C. really for the first time. The other night, I walked, a tad anxiously into my dorm, and turned to the right to open up my mailbox. With sudden urgency, I noticed a singular white envelope, and checked the address: The Financial Aid Department . . . I gulped hard, my Midwestern friend did not call me, instead I received this official envelope. My impassive expression smiled to a young lady to my right, as I tore open the envelope. I walked over to a shadowy corner and hurriedly read it. I raised a clenched fist, while exclaiming, just under my breath, 'All right!'

And lying back in the river, I let out a huge sigh and felt finally secure enough with my situation not only to relax, but to begin enjoying this place. They had given me the extra grant money to stay in school, though I would still have to work a good number of hours at security. But it was now possible, and I laid there elated, a smile pulling at my chapped lips. There was the white dome of the Jefferson Memorial, the pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington obelisk, the gray towers of Georgetown University ...

After we finished on the water that day, we began - as we did at the end of every practice on the water - the conditioning side of our practice. Usually we ran along the C&O canal, did leapers (like aerobic squats), or - as on this day - did the Exorcist steps. The Exorcist steps referred to a steep and medieval series of dark gray stone that allowed pedestrians to ascend from 'M' street up to the high bluff where the Georgetown neighborhood resided. But in our popular imagination, these were the steps where Satan tossed the Jesuit priest to his death in William Blatty's film, 'The Exorcist', and thus the name.

On the first day that we did the steps, a senior rower pointed to a red stain and said solemnly, 'That's where they did in the Jesuit priest.'
A bright-eyed, fellow Midwestern said, 'Wow, that's pretty cool.'
But I had been sold on this conditioning business. So I would gravitate to the front of the line, grit my teeth, and storm up the incline, barely letting the soles of my shoes touch the solid rock before my calf muscles lunged me to the next step, and then right and then left and then right, creating a rush of wind that coolly flapped my sweaty shorts.

And well when I take to something, I tend to take to something. A little bit of the old tunnel vision. I remember the time in first grade when I took to doing puzzles. In the basement of my grade school, for some odd reason we had - from my five-year-old perspective - an endless supply of puzzles. During one recess, I began to put one together, and by the end of the month, I was completely absorbed in this business of assembling puzzles. I had started in the left corner of the basement and worked my way through about 200 puzzles. I even convinced my teacher, Ms. Flakestone to spend the rest of her school supply budget on a series of D-Day commemorative puzzles that memorialized with realistic detail the Allies' landing on Omaha Beach. Soon I stopped going to my classes and dedicated myself full time to the art of puzzles. Michelangelo had Pope Julius II as a benefactor, and likewise I had Ms. Flakestone.
One day, the other first grade teacher came down and remarked to Ms. Flakestone, who had been watching me from afar, 'You know, shouldn't he be up in class with the others?'
'No, he can't be bothered.'
In many ways it was the only time in my life when I've experienced a real period of notoriety. I would leave my studio in the basement, walk into the cafeteria, and pick up my chocolate milk carton, while my fellow classmates remarked, 'There goes the puzzle freak.'
Now I know it would later turnout that Ms. Flakestone was only filling in for the real first grade teacher who had taken the year off to recover from a difficult pregnancy. And after that year she returned to her real job, stocking shelves at night at a discount grocery store. Sometime shortly after that, she was committed to a mental hospital, and I received a lot of hell for that because everyone in my class knew that I was her favorite. And even then, I would defend her vehemently because in my heart I knew that she was a fine assessor of potential talent.

And like before with puzzles, now every molecule in my body had one singular focus - crew. And to this end, on this day of practice, I vaulted myself up those stairs with gritted teeth and singularity of purpose.

A few days after our sinking, I came down with a sore throat and a very high fever. I tried to practice one-day, but the flu had gone to my muscles, and I was aching all over. I took the rest of the week off. When I came back, I felt much better. In addition, on the advice of a fellow rower, I began to take a whey-based protein shake, and it gave me a real spark of energy.

Throughout the month of October, we worked on melding the three separate mechanics of the stroke: push off with the legs, tilt of the back, and through with the arms into one fluid motion. And as the mornings in October grew darker and colder, the jerkiness in my stroke eroded. I became more proficient at sliding forward, a clean drop of the oar, pushing off with the legs, through with the back and then arms. My stroke became so familiar that I could concentrate more on racing forward and bouncing out of this hunched over position again and again . . . ripping the oar through with my body.

But when the eight separate rowers in my boat began to achieve a rhythm, we had moments between careening right and careening left, when our boat took on an exhilarating momentum. I fired the rollers of my seat forward, dropped the oar, gritted my teeth with all might, leaping out, over and over again, my bloodless hands tearing through the wood handle, the whirl of spraying water, the rocky outcrops appearing suddenly close and then passing safely by, the smell of wet, chipped paint, the choppy current splashing against our side before forming into a frothy wake that disappeared into the water. Coach Nanook declared that we were peaking just in time for the Princeton regatta.

When we finally made the turn for that day's practice at the rocks leading up to Great Falls Park, I leaned forward, breathing hard on my feathered oar, while the starboard side fought to turn the boat downstream. My Georgetown sweatshirt was bathed in sweat; my face was warmed by the sun resting just above the Washington Monument and the Key Bridge. I dropped in my oar and did a few measured strokes with my arms until the boat had so rotated that I felt the slanting rays chafe the residue of the sunburn along my neck.

The boats were ordered to line-up for a race. I couldn't explain it, but I felt great; the muscles of my legs gorged robustly. Oh Olivia would be proud! I decided that the infinitesimal movement in my left leg must have been a product of my imagination. Indeed, I felt as if my brain had tied off my left arm, slapped it a few times to find the hint of purple, and injected a generous dose of endorphins. I rowed gently with my arms churning back and forth as the boats tried to even out amidst the remaining coils of vapors still hovering along the water.

Holding up our oars, we let the current usher us to the other two boats. I dropped my hand into the stream of water that appeared yellow and auburn because of the floating broth of leaves. I looked down river as the rocky outcrops rose more frequently to interrupt the bluish-green current, and various gray-tailed birds touched down on the dried exposed part of the rock. The sun has stained the valley in front of me so much so that the reds had become the junior colors to the saffrons and blushing peach shades.
'Ready!' Coach Nanook said through his loudspeaker.
I took my hand and splashed some water on my face, regretting that the chill of this morning had passed.
'On three . . .'
Like a timed piston, I raced forward, yanked at the wood -- aware only of the shoulders in front of me, and again, a yank, and again, I ripped at the wood, exhaled, yanked, exhaled, yanked to the rhythm of the coxswain's: 'pull, pull, pull,' and I did again and again and again as the momentum of the boat was slowly building, and a push with the legs, a tilt of the back, and through with the arms, and push and yank and push and yank and push and yank and then for a brief transcendent moment, the boat's balance and thrust were in such proportion, that the boat - like a car hydroplaning on a wet highway - seemingly lifted and then effortlessly glided on the momentum of the current. Gasping for air, I raced forward and pushed off against the moist soles and pulled and back and pushed until I became oblivious that I was rowing at a maddening pace on a precariously balanced piece of wood, feeling only the inexorable flow; the water spraying coolly on my warm shoulders, and then I don't remember, but I try. . . Yes, yes I felt an unraveling in the back of my left leg, but I pushed and pulled and lept and yanked and then it was as if a magic bullet from a book depository building tore zigzag through my muscle fibers . . . Instinctively I tried to maintain form, biting on my tongue, the pain made me swoon a bit until my oar caught a crab, the blade sucked under the boat, the handle slapped me across the face, and the unprecedented pain.

'Shhhhhhhh. . . . .', I cursed underneath my breath, trying very quickly not to remember when the nurse popped her head in and said the doctor would be right in.

Dr. Sanders finally entered the room, and he took a seat at the little table. I remained on the examining table, but turned slightly to face him directly. The doctor explained that he had gone through my medical and physical therapy records, but still wanted to get a medical history from me.

Some months prior, I had seen a different doctor who had ordered the tests that were conducted on me, but this doctor had subsequently called me up and explained to me that he was moving to a different hospital on the West Coast, and that Dr. Sanders would be handling my case.

I detailed my medical history, beginning with the initial hamstring pull my freshman year, the subsequent injuries and pulls that I sustained in the latter part of my freshman year: left pulled hamstring that would not heal, left pulled groin, left pulled adductor, left strained hip flexor, right pulled hamstring, right pulled adductor, 'smashed' nerve in right shoulder blade that prevented me from using crutches.

As I spoke, he presumably was writing down what I was saying. Dr. Sanders then interrupted, ''Pulled' what does that mean? Pulled means 'to strain', which I think would be different than whether the muscle was torn, right?'

I looked over, considering this, why is he asking me; he's the guy on the clock. I then replied in the most accurate way I knew how, 'With the hamstring muscle, it was like an unraveling, the muscles were coming apart, I could feel the movement of the muscles coming apart, it was very painful, I remember there being a lot of heat. Within days afterwards, the muscle and leg felt heavy and useless and painful.'

'Okay, my sophmore year, I was doing physical therapy, started riding a bike, and things were healing, and getting my strength back. Around Christmas, I think my physical therapist suggested that I should see a neurologist because of the slowness of certain things healing, namely my left leg and a little bit for my right shoulder. I went ahead and made the next available appointment, which wasn't until well last July. So I saw Dr. ...?'
'Dr. Fisher,' he said, still taking his notes.
'Dr. Fisher right, and he did some tests and some blood tests, and well I kept getting stronger, so I stopped going to physical therapy. I exercised and well still exercise say three days a week. I feel good, right leg's completely healed; the left leg still gives me some trouble, every now and then I feel these odd sensations in it, but you know, I don't know, well, uhm, so I called about the results of the tests and they had me make an appointment with you.'
Dr. Sanders proceeded to do an exam, testing my various reflexes and my sense of feeling throughout my body. He asked me a whole series of questions, and in my various responses, I informed him that I was having prolonged 'muscle tremors' in my left leg, a little bit in my right, some in my arms, and that I would have these odd sensations in my left leg, sort of a chill coursing through, but without the coolness. Nevertheless, I added that these did not appear to be of any consequence and I feel now pretty good, and dramatically better than last year. Of course, I ended by noting that there seemed to be a wall with my left leg that I could not build my strength beyond.
Dr. Sanders sat back down and jotted a few more notes.
'The tests show that there's nothing wrong with you, that is you've got a perfectly normal neuromuscular system.' He then added with a hand gesture, 'And this is great news. I think you probably had a very bad injury, which coincidently compounded into other injuries, but looking at your physical therapy progress notes, you've done great, sure it was a little slow, but in light of these test results, the blood tests, the electric stimulation tests, I think you're fine.'
Not entirely convinced, I gave a few more anecdotal examples of the troubles I was having.
'Listen, the brain is a very powerful thing, I have no doubt it can cause the body to do a lot of crazy things. Keep doing what you're doing, there's no reason why you shouldn't be back to playing sports, basketball or what was it rowing.' He shot up, grabbed his files, and then proceeded to warmly shake my hand. 'Call me if there's any further problems.'

As I walked out of the doctor's office, I turned over the words in my mind, 'the tests show that there's nothing wrong with you.' I thought back to the test - the EMG (electromyography) testing. It was a machine with many wires and gauges with a computer screen that showed wavy lines that went up-and-down as a needle went into my muscles (the so-called needle EMG); in another part of the test (the nerve conduction study), various shocks were sent to my nerves, and measurements were taken. It was all very elaborate and convincing. I recalled the doctor's comforting words and just enjoyed the smile that followed, it was as if he had said, 'You are healed!'