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There's a guy at Tae Kwon Do who's got some medical issues. He's 38, diabetic, and has some problems on top of that from having been in an accident of some sort a few years ago. He started TKD about 6 - 8 months before I did. Every belt for him is a challenge. He works twice as hard as the rest of us, at a minimum, for every bit of progress he makes. In spite of this, he smiles a lot. He's very intense on the floor, but that's because he has to be.
His problem isn't physical frailty of the sort you'd normally expect. The man is solid muscle; he can do a hundred push ups, or sit ups, without stopping, and maintaining a constant pace the whole way through. He's got an amazing amount of raw physical power. His problem is that a minor cold can put him in bed for a week. His palate isn't quite right and it's not congenital, he's got a small scar from where the docs did the best job they could repairing it after the physical trauma that he suffered from the previously mentioned accident. His nose isn't quite right anymore either. It affects his ability to breathe. Those long deep inhalations through the nose that we're constantly reminded to do aren't always possible for him. He doesn't allow this to slow him down.
When we spar with him, we have to be careful to make the lightest possible contact (and for a long time, he wasn't allowed to do any contact sparring at all). His physical restrictions chafe. He wants to get in there and give everything he's got and he wants us to return it, but the reality is that we can't. An injury for him is serious. Potentially fatal in the event of secondary infection.
He's scheduled to test for Novice Black 7 days from today. He won't be at that testing.
He didn't get injured in class. His diabetes isn't acting up. The various meds he's on aren't killing him. He's in the ICU, and has been there for a little over two weeks now, because one of these idiots, the ones I rant about regularly here, rear ended his car. It's likely he'll never again gain consciousness. He's got bleeding in the brain, his kidneys have failed, and if they take him off the vent, he'll stop breathing. All because some asshole in a car was either too impatient, or distracted, and crashed into the back of his car. It wasn't a major accident. He wasn't feeling very good the next morning, and called in sick to work. It took another day of being unable to leave the house and getting worse before he ended up in the hospital. The doc who is also a fellow student works in the hospital where this man is slowly dying, and has been in to see him. His expectation isn't good. There's a chance that he may recover, but it's so small it may as well not exist.
He'll be given an honorary Black belt, whatever happens. We know he would have made it anyway.
Be glad you woke up today.
His problem isn't physical frailty of the sort you'd normally expect. The man is solid muscle; he can do a hundred push ups, or sit ups, without stopping, and maintaining a constant pace the whole way through. He's got an amazing amount of raw physical power. His problem is that a minor cold can put him in bed for a week. His palate isn't quite right and it's not congenital, he's got a small scar from where the docs did the best job they could repairing it after the physical trauma that he suffered from the previously mentioned accident. His nose isn't quite right anymore either. It affects his ability to breathe. Those long deep inhalations through the nose that we're constantly reminded to do aren't always possible for him. He doesn't allow this to slow him down.
When we spar with him, we have to be careful to make the lightest possible contact (and for a long time, he wasn't allowed to do any contact sparring at all). His physical restrictions chafe. He wants to get in there and give everything he's got and he wants us to return it, but the reality is that we can't. An injury for him is serious. Potentially fatal in the event of secondary infection.
He's scheduled to test for Novice Black 7 days from today. He won't be at that testing.
He didn't get injured in class. His diabetes isn't acting up. The various meds he's on aren't killing him. He's in the ICU, and has been there for a little over two weeks now, because one of these idiots, the ones I rant about regularly here, rear ended his car. It's likely he'll never again gain consciousness. He's got bleeding in the brain, his kidneys have failed, and if they take him off the vent, he'll stop breathing. All because some asshole in a car was either too impatient, or distracted, and crashed into the back of his car. It wasn't a major accident. He wasn't feeling very good the next morning, and called in sick to work. It took another day of being unable to leave the house and getting worse before he ended up in the hospital. The doc who is also a fellow student works in the hospital where this man is slowly dying, and has been in to see him. His expectation isn't good. There's a chance that he may recover, but it's so small it may as well not exist.
He'll be given an honorary Black belt, whatever happens. We know he would have made it anyway.
Be glad you woke up today.
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*hugs*
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But I would like to thank you for sharing this, for introducing him to us no matter what happens. I'll be thinking of him.
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I'm glad he seemed to get as much out of life as possible before, though. Cold comfort, maybe, but, well.
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Um--drivers, be careful out there...