Deliver Me: A True Story

By Larry Kevin Garland II

At 23 years old, I was an award-wining opera and contemporary singer with a job as a professional performer. I was living my dream until, after performing in a show, I had a massive stroke that left me completely paralyzed on the left side of my body and I was placed in a medically-induced coma. But, unlike with most neurological injuries, my memory was never effected. While I was trapped in my own mind, I lived a horrible, confusing reality as my subconscious tried to make sense of what was happening to me and around me in the real world. When I finally awoke, I had to relearn how to function from the ground up and I had to restructure the goals I had set for my future. But I wasn’t alone. Through God’s grace and through support from family and friends, I persevered. This is my completely true and transparent account of how it all happened. This is my success story. I hope reading it brings you peace and understanding in a world that so desperately needs more of both.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781984583420

Book preview

1

"And we know that in all things God works for the

good of those who love him, who have been called

according to His purpose." -Romans 8:28

I was twenty-three years old the first time my family and I had to wonder if I was going to live through the evening.

It felt like some tiny creature tapped a single, light finger against the inner walls of my brain. Not so much of a brush or a sweep but a crack like one in the knuckle of your finger, yet so faint that I wasn’t sure I had felt it at all. But I did feel it. Then I was overcome by a cool, sourceless breeze that swelled out from within me. An ice-cold numbness emanated from underneath my skin and sent shivers down my spine.

At first, my emotions were limited to that of curiosity and concern, for in those first few milliseconds I did not fully grasp what had occurred. I tried to stand, thinking it might be wise to go lie down. This was the moment that I became completely aware of what was happening to me.

I managed one step with my right leg but my left leg stayed limp and dragging, seemingly glued to the floor. Likewise, my left arm drooped at my side and swayed like the pendulum of a grandfather clock and even the muscles on the left side of my back and torso failed all at once. I could do nothing but collapse under my own weight with a hard thud on the freezing, white, tile flooring as my body seemed to lose whatever power it had left. Then a new chill crept over me — fear and disbelief — I realized I was having a stroke.

I had to get help. I had to get to the door and get it open. Both tasks seemed impossible, especially because I had locked both the outside door and the interior door in the bathroom. The first door was easy enough to get through; I opened it before I stood and fell. The second door would be the problem. I had fallen on my left side, trapping my now useless, paralyzed arm beneath me. With a determined grunt, I rolled to my right and forced my left arm to the side where it could drag freely as I attempted to move forward. With my entire left side being rendered unusable, moving at all was a confusing, difficult endeavor. I drove my right arm forward and proceeded to army crawl towards the exterior, bathroom doorway. When I pulled myself to the door, I banged on it with my fist and yelled for help, hoping someone was close enough to hear and respond. If I could not get help quickly, and maybe even if I did, I knew I would probably die.

2

The circumstances leading up to my stroke were unlikely. And I can’t be thankful enough for how things happened. I have been a singer and a performer since high school. I got a BA in music theatre with a vocal emphasis at Young Harris College, a private, Methodist-affiliated school in the mountains of North Georgia. I was classically trained as an opera singer as well, and earned titles in state, regional and national competitions as a solo vocalist.

After I graduated from college, my first job in the professional world was at a company called Blue Gate in Northern Indiana in an Amish town called Shipshewana, fifteen minutes from the Michigan border. My eight-month contract with them began in late March of 2019. I was the lead in a Broadway-style musical and my housing and meals were provided. As simple as it was, this was my dream- making a living as a performer and using my voice every day.

This was wonderful, but Blue Gate was not my first choice. I’m hesitant to say that, out of respect to my friends and employers at Blue Gate, but I want to be as honest as possible. I was also unofficially offered a position with Disney Cruise Lines on March 12th of 2019 after being invited to a callback at Pearl Studios in NYC. They wanted me to be Hook Hand from the movie Tangled and work for almost nine months on a European cruise line. Had I been available, I would have accepted the offer in a heartbeat. But because the offer only came after I had accepted my eight month contract with Blue Gate, I had to decline. Though I was upset about this at the time, I would later be thankful. This turn of events saved my life. Had I been in a position to accept Disney’s offer, I would have had a stroke on a boat somewhere in the middle of the ocean between here and Europe and I probably never would have made it to the hospital.

My stroke happened on Friday, July 12th, 2019. This was just under four months into my Blue Gate contract. The cast and I had done a 1 pm show that afternoon and had all left the theater to go about our respective days. It was not uncommon for my house mate, Devin, to leave from the theater and go to the gym, leaving me at home for several hours, alone. On this day, he broke from his semi-normal routine and came home with me. He didn’t know it, but his decision would keep me from dying a lonely and panic-stricken death on the floor of our second story bathroom.

Because he was home and so close by when my stroke began, Devin was able to call for help immediately. While he was on the phone, I was just barely able to reach up to the doorknob and twist hard on the lock to get it unbolted so that Devin could open the door. As I lie on the cold floor fighting against my own body, waiting for help to come, he tried, to little avail, to convince me that I would not die and everything would be ok. I was so appreciative of his genuine efforts to calm me, but death, to me, seemed unavoidable. Time, I knew, was my enemy and it was sprinting by with every second that elapsed. If help didn’t come within minutes, I was sure I would meet my death. So, it was then that I began to prepare myself for that meeting.

The first person to arrive at the house was my boss at the theater. Sylvia is a thin woman I believe to be in her sixties (of course, I never asked) with lightly tanned skin and short white hair. She ran up the stairs to get to us, made surprisingly spry by the adrenaline pumping through her body; I had always known Sylvia was an active woman but I was still impressed. By this time, I had managed to open the bathroom door wide enough to expose the upper half of my body, my lower half keeping the door from opening further.

Sylvia was on the phone with emergency response when she knelt next to me and took my hand. She didn’t know exactly what to tell them so she spoke to them on my behalf as I fed her instructions. With every word that came out of my mouth, it felt as if gravity had been turned up higher on half of my face. The left half of my mouth drooped lower than the right and my words slurred drastically as I tried to relay information to the paramedics. Slowly, I trudged through my instructions.

I’m defnily havin a stroke. Tell em... my lef side is parlyze. My face... is droopin an my words are slurred. I’m aboutto sart throwin up which... means my brain is probbly swellin. Make sure you leh them... know I’m on the secon floor, so they will needto bring... a stresher that can take stairs. I haven been drinkn or smokin... I don’t do drugs and I... take no medcations.

My mother has been a registered nurse at a hospital in the north side of Atlanta for over thirty-five years. Thirty-three of those years have been spent as a neuro nurse where she worked at the bedside of patients exactly like me. For this reason, I knew more about what was happening to me than most people might.

As Sylvia continued to stay on the line with paramedics and Devin continued to try to make me feel like I wouldn’t die, I wondered to myself how my last few moments would feel. What will it feel like to slip away from this world? Am I prepared to meet God? Will it hurt? Will I be aware of my slip into whatever lay beyond death or will I lose touch with my own self, moments before I am finally gone? And, of course, the ever popular question, how many people will come to my funeral? I almost smirked as that last thought crossed my mind.

A loud bang downstairs indicated the arrival of paramedics as they barged through the front door of my house. I found it odd that they were there so quickly. Just as odd to me was the realization that I had never heard sirens approaching. I found out, later, that this was because the ambulance dispatched to my location had been almost directly across the street from my house when they got the call.

Four men trotted up the stairs, two with haste and two laboring over a chair with wheels like gears that thudded as they grinded up the wooden steps. A stout, dark-skinned, white man with stubble on his chin and a bald head was the first to kneel at my side and grab the back of my neck with a strong, gentle grip. Purple, latex gloves covered his hands but I could feel the heat from his palm as it seeped into my body which was becoming colder and colder.

He walked through a series of simple questions (he had an accent that seemed far too country for someone in Shipshewana Indiana) to ascertain my cognitive state. When it became apparent that I was aware and mentally present, he and the others behind him seemed more willing to listen to what I had to say.

The ress of my body is... blockin the door. If you try to pushit open, you will... hur me. But I can’t move on myown so I’ll need someone to move my lowr... half out of the way so I can geh outof here. I said. The man stepped aside and a thinner, younger looking man squeezed through the gap in the door and into the bathroom with me. He grabbed my legs and pulled them to the left so the door could be opened all the way.

Few more questions were asked as the EMTs had already been brought up to speed over the phone. The other three men came into the bathroom and stood around me. How tall they were, I couldn’t be sure. From the cold, hard floor, they all looked like giants to me. It was difficult to concentrate fully. I stopped paying attention to them as individuals and regarded them as one mass that was there to try to help.

Somewhere from this mass came, in stern, clear words, We have a special stretcher that will get you down the stairs. We need to lift you now so that we can put you on it.

I waved the voice away and said wait, then turned my head to the left as I upheaved what must have been the entire contents of my stomach. Now’m ready.

In one swift motion, the four men lifted me from the ground, my limp body feeling weightless in the air. With a thud, they plopped me down into the leather seat of this stair stretcher. It was at this moment that I was first able to regard the faces of Devin and Sylvia as they stood off to the side and out of the way.

They stared back at me with a look of helpless horror as they watched me suffer, knowing they could do nothing to help. I felt horrible. Seeing them hurt, though I knew no one was at fault, made me feel guilty. My biggest concern, at that moment, was to safeguard their feelings. I couldn’t let them see this