Stories
by Kurt LeBlanc
by Kurt's Grandmother Betty
by Coach Richard Curlin
I laughed after football practice when I told my mom that I had lost my peripheral vision in my right eye. That was actually the first of two strokes.
I was supposed to finally start a game at linebacker as a sophomore. I went to the neurologist though, and he told me not to play until he figured out what it was. It was the homecoming game too. During the homecoming pep rally, my right leg gave out on me as the clot in my head moved. Because it did, I had to sit in the back of a golf cart as the team paraded around the school.
Three days later, I got ready for school and my face started picking like a foot going to sleep. I wiped my face with a damp rag, but it wouldn’t stop. I then sat down on the toilet with the towel on my face. I then got dizzy. The whole world wobbled each way. I slowly fell to my knees and rested my head on the tub by me. My brother found me like this and went to tell my mom. My mom screamed at the sight of me and my other 2 brothers loaded me in the truck.
My mom rushed me to the local hospital where the doctors pumped me full of anti-seizure medicine that knocked me out. They checked my heart thoroughly then transferred me to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. They again they checked my heart but found nothing. Six doctors told my parents I was dead.
My parents were riding home when a doctor phoned them saying he wanted a chance to save me. The doctor tried a relatively new procedure that had only been successful in cases four to eight hours after the stroke. The operation was 53 hours after my stroke, but it was worth a try. What could be worse anyway?
The doctor removed the clot and I was supposed to lay in a bed the rest of my life with locked-in syndrome. I progressed out of that with prayers and am supposed to make a full recovery now. I knew when I collapsed that I would never talk again. I just had a weird feeling. In a way I won’t talk (like I normally would). My voice changed and I still cannot talk yet after a year.