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"God had different plans." Paralyzed by bullet, Michael tries new life.
Outside his window, the seasons were on the cusp of change. Winter's gray bleakness was yielding to spring's riot of colors, and Michael Dixon was
ever so thankful.
Soon he would go outside, Michael thought to himself.
Just do nothing but
sit in the sun and feel its warmth envelop him like a mother's hug. He would
ask Shirley, his sister, to take him to the grassy area behind his apartment complex and just let him sit there, mild breezes washing across his face.
For now, until the new season firmly established itself, his view remained
limited to the small, one-windowed room of his townhouse apartment. It was a
view he knew all too well, because it was the only view he had.
To the right was the 25-year-old man's "picture wall." Hundreds of photos of
his mom, his four brothers and four sisters, his late father and former
co-workers were pasted there. There were snapshots of him, too, images
frozen from a time when he played basketball, hung out with friends, normal
stuff.
Surrounded by the photographs was a framed painting of a crucified Jesus,
the wounds on his hands, feet and side tinged with red. Just below the
ceiling was a fading paper banner, about 10 feet long, with the messages:
"You are always in our thoughts" and "Best wishes Mike, we all love you."
To the young man's left was the window. On sunny afternoons, yellow light
cascaded into the room; on cloudy days the window was a rectangle of slate
gray sky. Either way he was the constant in this sparse tableau, a prisoner
in a room without bars, in a body without feeling.
How long had it been since he left this 12-by-10 room for any other reason
than to see a doctor? Four months? Five months? He could not remember.
It had been a long winter, his fourth since the shooting. Each seemed
longer, colder, more gray than the last, but, finally, spring had returned
once again.
Hope was in bloom.
"I'm blessed," Michael told his sister.
"Yes you are," Shirley agreed. "Yes you are."
Four years ago, on a muggy night in early July, Michael Allen Dixon was shot
three times in the neck by a deranged gunman. Simply, it was a case of
mistaken identity. The shooter, bent on revenge, was looking to shoot
someone that night. It wasn't supposed to be Michael.
The three hollow-point bullets from the man's 9 mm Luger splintered
Michael's spinal cord at two locations, leaving him a quadriplegic.
The damage was instantaneous, occurring the very moment the projectiles splintered his vertebrae.
Essentially all that could be done at the hospital
was to stabilize him, treat the wounds and introduce him to a life where
he's as helpless as the day he was born.
From his waist to the top of his head and from his shoulders to his elbows,
Michael has feeling. If Shirley nicks his chin during his morning shave, he
winces. If a fly alights on his nose, it tickles. He can pivot his head from
left to right, but that's the sum of his voluntary movement.
From waist to toes and from elbows to fingers, he can feel pressure, but he
cannot voluntarily move any of his extremities. To scratch his nose or drink
a Coke or brush his teeth requires the assistance of another human being.
Even to breathe he needs help. By his bed is a squarish machine with dials
and gauges on its face. A blue plastic tube, about an inch in diameter,
stretches for several feet from the machine to a white plastic tube that
juts out of Michael's throat, just below his Adam's apple. The machine is a
ventilator assist, model LP 86. It senses when Michael is about to take a
breath and boosts the volume of air entering his lungs. The gentle whirring
and clicking as it comes to life every few seconds is background noise to
which he and his family became accustomed long ago.
Michael was robbed, without cause or provocation, of the basic privileges of
being human: to walk, to run, to talk without waiting for a machine to
deliver the breath to do so, to feed yourself, to gesture, to throw a
basketball, to take care of personal needs in privacy, to embrace loved
ones, to lift palms in praise, to be alone. All this and more was snatched
from him in an instant.
The ripple effect of the violence extended to his family, including his
mother who raised nine children while working up to five jobs to make ends
meet, his devoted sister who sacrificed her life's plans to become his
primary caregiver, and his other siblings and cousins, nephews and nieces
who have been affected by his suffering.
Not too long ago, Michael's injuries would have been fatal, but trauma
medicine has made considerable progress in the treatment of gunshot wounds.
Of course, one wonders what that says about a society where progress comes
at the pain of man's inhumanity to man.
Michael certainly wondered. Modern medicine saved him, but for what? To lie
in bed for the rest of his life, his muscles withering, his isolation
growing more acute, his sanity slipping as he falls further into obscurity?
"I don't think so," he countered.
Before paralysis, Michael's dream was to break into the gospel music
recording field. This had been his goal since high school. He wanted to be a
producer, to make rafter-shaking, foot-stomping gospel songs. He had a plan
on paper, a five-year schedule to get his business off the ground. "But God had different plans for me and I'm just gonna have to depend on Him
to see me through. That's what it's all about, just waiting on the Lord to
see how things turn out," he said.
It had taken four years for Michael to accept the person he had become, to
adjust his focus from activities he could no longer enjoy to thinking about
what he could do. For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to
dream of the future, his future.
On an early spring day in May, he announced a five-goal plan: Get a job so
he can start paying his own way, find a new place to live, wean himself from
the ventilator, buy a van so Shirley can take him wherever he wants to go,
and fall in love.
In no particular order.
On a hot summer night four years ago, a man with a gun lay in waiting for
someone who meant him harm.
"Who that?" the man shouted.
But the man in the shadows did not pause for an answer.
Sadly, the physical laws governing the trajectory of a bullet operate even
under the unsteady hand of a man who is liquored up, crazed with irrational
fear.
The shooter found a target.
This is the story of the consequences of that single act of violence, of how
one man struggled to find hope despite overwhelming adversity. Of how one
family found the strength to sacrifice beyond measure.
This is Michael's story.
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