Subj:	Introduction Story
Date:	9/15/98 1:34:58 PM EST
From:	bucky(AT)tarheel.net
 (bucky)
To:	tmic-list(AT)eskimo.com

    Hey, my name is Michael Webb.  I am a 17 year old guy from North
Carolina. I have been in a wheelchair for 3 years now. It all started on
the morning of March 9, 1995. I woke up and started getting ready for
school, just like any other day(little did I know what was to come). I sat
down on the couch to eat breakfast and my chest started hurting really bad.
It felt like cigarettes burning me at nipple level all the way around my
chest and back. I started feeling sick from the pain and went to the
bathroom to throw up but I couldn't. On the way back to the couch from the
bathroom I could feel my legs getting wobbly. I lied back down on the couch
and within 15 minutes or so, I couldn't move or feel anything from my chest
down. My parents took me to the hospital hoping it was just a pinched nerve
or something. When we got there, the first doctor I seen was just an
"on-call" doctor in the ER. He had no idea what was wrong so he called in a
neurologist. The neurologist came in and examined me and went into the hall
with my mother. I heard my mom start crying and I knew something was wrong
but didn't know what. The neurologist told my mom that my spinal cord was
severed. He wasn't real sure, so they sent me to a larger hospital nearby
in an ambulance. The doctors at the larger hospital diagnosed me over the
phone on my way to the hospital. They diagnosed me with Transverse
Myelitis. I spent about a week in the hospital and went into a
rehabilitation center. I spent about a month and a half in rehab learning
to take care of myself, to get around in a wheelchair, and about spinal
cord injuries and their restrictions.

    I had led the average life of any average person up to this point and I
still live as "normal" of a life as possible. I am a senior in high school
and plan to go to college and study Occupational Therapy. I have my
licensee and I'm supposed to get a car in October.