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// Prologue 
// Story: Three Steps Down 
// by Rusty Bascule 
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	Three steps...

He was not in a happy mood. His mind wandering to that fateful afternoon when his life changed unexpectedly.

Three fucking steps.

And not for the better. It should have been a great and exciting time for him: He had only just graduated a few months ago and he should be enjoying the summer and probably attending job interviews for his first new job after graduating but instead, he was sitting in a recliner in his parents living room, staring out into the small garden.

I hate being crippled.

It was in the early evening three weeks ago when the incident occurred. The hallway light had gone out and he had thought that he would be a helpful son and replace the lightbulb for his parents. No big deal. He had located the small stepladder and had moved it into position and he had removed the old lightbulb before searching for a suitable replacement. Somehow, before he had returned to the stepladder, a small strip of plastic had become stuck to the bottom of his shoe and he had not noticed. He replaced the lightbulb and as he descended, on the third step from the bottom, his foot flew out from under him and he fell in a very undignified heap on the floor.

I wish I had known earlier... Maybe it would have been different.

As he had laid on the floor, he was acutely aware of an intense pain in his lower back. So he had rested a few seconds before gingerly picking himself off the floor. The pain didn't get much better but at least he was standing. The light switch was near where he was standing so he switched the light on. He remembered thinking "At least that now works," before he slowly went to the bathroom to locate some ibuprofen.

And it was so embarrassing.

On that evening, he had watched some television before retiring to bed early, the pain never completely going away but it manifested itself as a dull throb, distracting himself from the canned entertainment. He performed his usual nightly ablutions before getting into bed and after a long while, eventually drifted off into a dreamless sleep. He awoke to a bright sunny morning, his back pain from the previous evening had gone away so he had cast the sheets off from himself before totally failing to get out of bed: To his horror, he discovered that he was paralysed from the waist down and the smell that had suddenly afflicted him, he had soiled himself during the night.

*sigh* My life sucks.

His mother was making pancakes when she heard him cry out for help. To him, the rest of the morning was a blur with the ambulance arriving at some point afterwards and the two burly paramedics had strapped him into a stiff stretcher before carrying him out to the ambulance. A noisy blur later, he was at the hospital where a doctor was talking to him and his mom. Soon he was in a chilly room with the MRI machine and they had injected him with something which made him quite nauseous. "Breath deeply," the technicians had suggested as he was moved into the bowels of the claustrophobic and noisy machine, thankful that he had accepted wearing the earplugs. Another blur and he was in back in triage but this time, there was a surgeon who was recommending immediate surgery.

Why?

Soon, he was being transported to an operating theatre which was a hive of activity as nurses were preparing the room and the anesthesiologist was asking him a few questions. He didn't remember much as during the chaos, another line was put onto his other arm for the drugs and he vaguely remembers the oxygen mask before he had lost consciousness.
For the second time that day, he regained consciousness but the second time was more laboured and uncooperative: He ached all over; his throat was painfully sore; he felt dehydrated and his lower back felt exceedingly sore... No doubt where they had operated. He was no dunce and guessed that his sore throat was from where they had "intubated" him. He tried wriggling his toes and they moved - well, the big toes moved but he guessed that he was probably still a bit drugged after the surgery.

If only it had been a total success.

By the surgeon's reckoning, the operation was a success as he had regained some sensation... but not all. By his reckoning, he had only regained something around 25% to 40% of his sensation and control. During the following week, he discovered that he could barely walk with a walking frame. The doctors and nurses were very happy but he was less excited because the limited mobility wasn't the worst part of his affliction: The incontinence was not solved by the surgery.