Miracle Times Infinity

I wish there were words more superlative than all the superlatives I know, because sometimes common words seem woefully tepid, scrawny and inapplicable. I typically feel this way regarding overexposed, redundant and unimaginative profanity. We used to employ such colorful curses, and now our expletives mostly have to do with bodily functions and ancestry. It's not that I feel compelled to employ profanity regularly or that I miss the small amount of cursing I used to indulge in before my kids developed their listening ears and repeating mouths. It's just that life would be so much more interesting if we could express frustration, disdain or anger in more colorful, memorable language than most of us can muster.*

I feel the same way when attempting to describe overwhelming feelings of joy, amazement, ecstasy, pleasure or whatever, because standard issue language just isn't adequate. I've often found it maddeningly frustrating (or frustratingly maddening?) to convey sufficiently how incredible (yuk) it is to be a mom to my two kids. The best description I ever came up with was that even though mothering was the most commonplace, mundane activity out there, it still was/is the most hands down special, perfect experience one can have (even the diaper/sleepless/midnight vomiting parts).

In any case, all this long-winded introduction leads me to my point, which is this: I cannot come up with anything more appropriate than the word "miracle" to describe this story:

Kevin Everett will be transferred Friday morning to a Houston hospital to begin the next phase of his rehabilitation, less than two weeks after the Buffalo Bills tight end sustained a life-threatening spinal cord injury.

And doctors said Thursday they believe he will be walking within weeks -- perhaps sooner.

In case you missed it, this 25-year-old professional football player was as close to death two weeks ago as a man can be and not be actually dead. There was no doubt in the minds of the finest neurosurgeons in the country that Kevin Everett would never walk, never move, never breathe on his own. Nevertheless, thanks to outstanding care immediately after his devastating injury (if you haven't heard or read about it, he broke his neck during a football game and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital doctors cooled his body to about ninety-two degrees with a chilled intravenous saline solution, thus preventing the devastating swelling of the spinal cord that leads to paralysis), he will likely walk again, and while his football career is over (?) he'll have a functioning life.

Of course, Kevin Everett received the most outstanding care available; there were doctors on the premises to commence immediate and urgent treatment. Still, the fact that such treatment can be effective under any circumstances is frankly astonishing. And I'm at a loss for words.

Well, actually I'm at a loss for suitable words. I'm rarely at a loss for any words.

I'm awestruck at the implications of this remarkable accomplishment. Preventing paralysis after a catastrophic spinal cord injury is tantamount to bringing back dinosaurs or dodos, reaching infinity, or the Cubs winning the World Series (sorry -- Cardinals fan. Just had to throw that in).

It's performing the impossible, people!

I keep revisiting this story in my mind, especially when pelted by horrible news everywhere I look. Stories like this one, no matter how implausible or unimaginable, give me a sorely needed feeling of well-being which I try to protect and nurture for as long as I can.

*Here are just a few delicious Yiddish curses; whence creativity?

• All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head.
• One misfortune is too few for him.
• They should free a madman, and lock him up.
• He should grow a wooden tongue.
• God should visit upon him the best of the Ten Plagues.
• He should have a large store, and whatever people ask for he shouldn’t have, and what he does have shouldn’t be requested.
• A hundred houses shall he have, in every house a hundred rooms and in every room twenty beds, and a delirious fever should drive him from bed to bed.
• All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer.