Up from the Abyss: A Journey of Personal Redemption from the Ravages of Guillain-Barrè Syndrome

By Italo Giovanni Savella

I assure you, though, there is nothing trite about coming down with Guillain-Barr syndrome. For the person hit by it, it's war and revolution wrapped in one: A catastrophe, an upheaval, a devastating blow.

But also an invaluable experience and a possibility for renewal.

I wouldn't be what I am now, a man at peace with himself and the world, had I not come down with, and fought back from, this terrible ailment. But I don't want to sound excessive. It isn't terminal cancer at young age, or trauma-induced coma and vegetative state; but, as Joseph Heller said, it's no laughing matter, either. The blessing about Guillain-Barr syndrome-and I mean that with only a little bit of irony-is that it doesn't affect the gray matter upstairs. You know it's bad, but you also know it can be defeated, and the struggle to overcome it lends a tremendous meaning of truthfulness to the old saying: "That which does not kill you " You know the rest. It can paralyze you completely, and, occasionally, do you in, but the road back or, as I imply in my title, the uphill struggle from the abyss is Herculean and character forming.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 7, 2005
• ISBN: 9780595807413

Italo Giovanni Savella

Life in two countries (Italy and the USA), two marriages, one son, and three academic degrees happened to me before Guillain-Barrè syndrome knocked me down for the count. Writing was part of the healing therapy. I was born in 1947 in Utica, NY, and currently live in Rochester.

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Copyright © 2005 by Italo Giovanni Savella

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ISBN-13: 978-0-595-36302-5 (pbk)

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ISBN-10: 0-595-80741-0 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Foreword

Awakening

The thing

The job

The fall

Eye opening

The family saga

Resurrection

Rehabilitation

Purgatory, act II, and making friends

Transfer

Struggling out of the weeds

Deliverance

Foreword

For the beginning of my story, as I was fishing for a catchy, dramatic opening shot, I kept thinking of the comic strip character Snoopy from Peanuts setting out, on top of his doghouse, to write the ultimate novel. You have heard the high-faluting but trite: It was a dark and stormy night… I raked my brain for something original to describe that dreadful morning when I woke up to realize there was something wrong with my body, but I could only come up with a pedestrian It was a Friday morning. Could these words compare to Call me Ishmael. or Midway in our life’s journey.? Those famous introductions belong to the ages, but I think I am about to tell an interesting story, nevertheless. Hawthorne and Dante, rest in peace! I am no threat to your fame.

I assure you, though, there is nothing trite about coming down with Guillain-Barre syndrome. For the person hit by this condition, it’s war and revolution wrapped in one: A catastrophe, an upheaval, a devastating blow.

But also an invaluable experience and a possibility for renewal.

I wouldn’t be what I am now, a man at peace with himself and the world, had I not come down with, and fought back from, this terrible ailment. But I don’t want to sound excessive. It isn’t terminal cancer at young age, mind you, or trauma-induced coma and vegetative state; but it’s bad enough. The blessing about Guillain-Barre syndrome—and I mean that with only a little bit of irony—is that you generally keep your marbles: it doesn’t affect the gray matter upstairs. You know it’s bad, but you also know it can be defeated, and the struggle to overcome it lends a tremendous meaning of truthfulness to the old saying: That which does not kill you. You know the rest. It can paralyze you completely, and, occasionally, do you in, but the road back or, as I imply in my title, the uphill struggle from the abyss is Herculean and character forming.

So, it’s with some hope of making a difference to someone else other than yours truly that I set out to write my story. It’s a very personal one that I began, to some extent, as part of my physical and occupational therapy, to see if I could hold my hands above a computer keyboard. The rehabilitation center therapists that took care of me after they stabilized me enough at the hospital helped me out at first with a large ball mouse instead of the typical push-and-click one, and a foam strap to rest my wrists on as I struggled to keep my fingers hovering over the keys. In the beginning, it was a battle to tap out just a few paragraphs at a time. However, spurring me on was the knowledge I had something to say that would resonate with many that have gone through debilitating physical experiences. It became therapeutic in the true sense. I really didn’t know what I was going to talk about for any length to make it into a book. But it unfolded in my mind as I went along and became aware that talking about my life, my jobs, my studies, and my family was essential to the reader’s understanding of what an epiphany this disaster had been for me.

Life is just too precious to stay mad for the things that have gone wrong and for the slights, real or imagined, that one has suffered. There is always someone worse off than you are and there is always tomorrow. The ultimate sentence comes only when you are six feet under.

Awakening

It was a Friday morning, the date: September 5, 2003. I was near the end of my workweek and everything pointed to a routine day. On cue from the radio alarm clock, I would soon get up, go to my job, and try to put in an honest day’s effort. Since I usually saved my grocery shopping for Saturday afternoons, I would most likely come directly home after work, cook some supper, watch some TV, and go to bed. I regularly worked a half shift on Saturdays, which I had been doing for the last several years.

The 6:45 AM wake-up call wasn’t really needed most of the times since I was a light sleeper and normally opened my eyes well before I could hear the announcer or the music from the classical station I had my bedside radio tuned to. As for the job, it put dinner on the table and paid the bills; it wasn’t my life’s vocation nor was it very lucrative. No more said about that, for now, save for the fact that I lived in a state of perpetual, diffused angst about making ends meet.

Like most other weeks, it seemed I had Sunday to look forward to for anything other than the treadmill; the cool weather with a hint of early autumn did not even hold the promise of a bicycle ride that Friday evening. I had no plans to go out. I lived alone in a comfortable two-bedroom apartment since the demise of my second marriage some four years earlier; it was part of a complex in the northeast corner of town just within the city limits. My one good friend Kate Stevenson, with whom I shared occasionally a movie or a weekend outing or just a cappuccino, was going to be out of town.

I was in decent health, with a touch of medically treated high blood pressure, and suffered only from an occasional cold or stomach upset. I could hardly remember the last time I’d had something as serious as the flu. In short, it looked like business as usual.

Well…not that day.

That Friday morning the gods had decreed a drastic detour. I woke up with a feeling of numbness and extreme weakness in my arms. I didn’t know it yet but it was the onset of Guillain-Barre syndrome.

Soon, my life of work and occasional fun would be put on hold as I engaged in a grueling and lengthy struggle to fight off a crippling condition, and regain control of my body. Not just my physique but also my mental toughness and core beliefs would be put to the test. I was about to undergo a radical transformation in my outlook on things well beyond the debilitation of my mortal coil that I was to endure in the following months. Pardon the touch of Shakespeare and be patient because, from my little vantage point, the contest would be titanic. Years of discontent and aimless questioning about the meaning of it all were about to be reconsidered.

I rarely slept well and the night before had been no different. I had restlessly tossed and turned in bed, in and out of sleep, waking up often to ask a divine agency, whose existence I stubbornly doubted, to give me a sign. I had perceived my life up to then to be quite devoid of meaning and purpose. I held three college degrees and worked as a truck driver. I earned just enough money to get by. I had been married twice, to two good women, but had always yearned for that perfect, unattainable match. I had broken my vows with the first one, and made life miserable for the second one and myself. I ached for not having been a good, fulltime father to my son, the fruit of my first marriage, and had left his mother when he was only five. I was now approaching retirement age and what did I have to show for it?

What sign was I looking for? I was quite well read in the humanities, being a history buff and holding a Ph.D. in the subject, but I understood also the basics of science,