Getting To Know Taylor

Taylor has always been a very strong, very athletic, but quiet young man, that loves to laugh, with a deep love for animals. He is passionate about God and his Country and would without a doubt be severing in the military if physically able.

Character If you want to know Taylor, you have to know his character. An author Malcolm Stevenson Forbes once said; "Our character is what we do when we think no one is looking." A story that his 5th grade teacher told me will give in a little insight into Taylor's character.

Growing up Taylor had a friend named Adam. Now Adam was an over weight, red headed kid that well, you could say he was different. Taylor really liked Adam and said he was one of the funniest kids he knew. As you could guess Adam was made fun of, but not for long.

The story starts in the first days of middle school. Mrs Burnside, Taylor's 5th grade teacher was on recess duty and saw in the distance a group of boys pushing and yelling. She walk towards the group and stop just short of the commotion. Meanwhile, Taylor, after eating his lunch, walked out to recess to find his friend Adam in the middle of a group of boys. The group of boys were pushing around and making fun of his friend Adam. Mrs. Burnside said, "Taylor ran and got between Adam and the group of boys that were bulling him.

"Taylor said, "If you mess with him (Adam), you are messing with me, and I don't think you want to do that".

You see, the boys knew Taylor from sports and when Taylor hit the field or court he was like another kid. His football and basketball teams went 4 years undefeated. He was one of the top swimmers on his swim team in his age group and in baseball he was named MVP by the high school coach and high school players, for his class. In track and field he took to the high jump like he was born for it and broke the Enon school track record at his very first meet. When it came to sports Taylor did not hold anything back. He once told his little brother," it does not matter what the score board says. If the other team is not crying after the game you did not win". This love for sports makes the next part of Taylor's life so devastating.

Accident a specific, identifiable, unexpected, unusual, and unintended external action which occurs in a particular time and place, without apparent or deliberate cause but with marked effects.

In July of 2001, between Taylor's 8th and 9th grade years of school Taylor had a tragic accident that would have marked effects on his life forever. It started as a wet cool summer morning with Taylor getting up and catching a ride to and from football weight training at the high school. When returning home he was met by a large delivery truck in our drive. The driver, being alone, asked Taylor if he could help move the metal roofing off his truck. Taylor said sure, and the two pick up the long stack of metal at each end. When they both cleared the truck the man let his end slip and fall to the ground leaving Taylor there to hold his end until he could no longer hold it by himself. What we would later find out was that the load of metal weighted over 350 lbs. When the bundle fell out of Taylor's hand it scraped down his leg cutting and severing all the tendons and cutting the muscle in his right foot. Thank God just 2mm to one side or the other he would have cut the artery and most likely lost his foot or his life.

For the next four years after many operations, Taylor bravely fought to regain the use of his leg and return to sports that he loved. But at the same time he had another battle to fight, the day after the accident, in the hospital, he started vomiting and having headaches. We took him to countless Doctors to try to find out what was wrong, but we could not find any doctor that knew the answer to his condition. Most Doctor's chalked it up to the accident and diagnosed him with, "Post Traumatic Stress Disorder". There was many mornings where Taylor went to school with a bag and he would vomit 4 or 5 times on the way to school, this went on all most everyday for 3 1/2 years.

In the spring of his Junior year of high school a new family doctor joined in on Taylor's case. She sent him to the Head ache clinic at Children's Medical Center, Cincinnati ,Ohio. At Children's, the doctor did some tests and believed he was suffering from, "migraines and silent migraines" (a silent migraine is when you would have vomiting and stomach pain with out the head pain). The doctor took Taylor off all medications and he was to only drink Gatorade and take vitamin B2. After months, he improved and for the next 4 years he seemed to be fine with just a few headaches now and then and no vomiting.

Courage is not one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at it's testing point.
~ unknown

In November of 2008 Taylor's health began to be tested again. Taylor started to have stomach pain and severe nausea and vomiting. He went to see his family doctor and she put him on medication and said give this a few weeks to work and call me if you don't get better. In January of 2009 he returned to the doctor without relief, she in turn referred him to a Gastroenterologist for testing. At the first of February he went to see Dr. Szabo who performed an upper endoscope on him. His diagnosis was GERDS and reflux.

In the months to come Taylor did not respond to the medications and they continued to test him.

To date he has had 2 upper endoscopy with biopsies, ct scan of the abdomen, blood test, EKG, MRI of the brain, H. Polori Bacteria test, ultrasound of the gallbladder, HIDA scan of the gallbladder, stomach emptying test, Barium x ray, and countless test for other diseases. The only test to come back with a diagnosis was the upper endoscope finding the inflammation in his stomach (GERDS). At the end of March Taylor was vomiting so bad one Saturday morning that we took him to the back to the family doctor. He vomited about 10 times in the office before seeing the doctor with a pain level of 10, (10 being the highest pain). The doctor gave he some medication and said if he is not better in two hours take him in to the ER. Taylor did not get any relief in the two hours and we took him in the the hospital where he spent the next 5 days being tested.

For the next month Taylor went back and forth to Dr. Szabo, the Gastro doctor. And at the end of March Dr. Szabo sent Taylor the see Dr. Moon to remove his gallbladder. At the beginning of April Taylor had his gallbladder removed with no relief from his pain. A week later we returned to Dr Szbo office and at this time said she was out of ideas and sent him to University of Cincinnati and Dr.Schmulewitz, Professor of Medicine Digestive Diseases, Dr Schmulewitz and his physician Assistant Jennifer Garrett have seen Taylor on a weekly bases and are working with a diagnosis of hypersensitivity pain disorder.
(see link http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/en/pain/microsite/science4.html), with non ulcer dyspepsia and poor gastric relaxation. There are times that Taylor can not even stand a t-shirt to touch is stomach. They are looking for the right medication and one that Taylor can withstand the side effects. We are currently on medication #3 and as of last Sunday 6/24 increased dosage once (this is good). Taylor also takes medication for his nausea and vomiting and for his headaches. Other doctors seeing Taylor are: Dr. Brown a neurologist, and he has acupuncture once a week with Dr. Shilpa Dias, acupuncture seems to be helping with the headaches.

Taylor had to take off his Spring semester at NKU and is on disability from his job at Citi Bank. He hopes to return to both as soon as he can.

Thank you for reading about Taylor, please keep him in your prays. This blog will be updated, please check back and feel free to leave your positive comments and well wishes for Taylor.

Rita Bryan