Oh, Poor Victim…

The last thing in the world I would ever want to sound like or be known as is a “Victim”. Yet there I was today just surfing through the internet and I came upon this blog page (from 2007). It was a bunch of people commenting on the “Inside Brookhaven” documentary (that I appeared in) it has been shown on Discovery and TLC channels from time to time over the years.

In it there was a piece where the EMT (Emergency Ambulance People) were transferring me (actually carrying me) down a long flight of steps in a wheelchair, with the help of six or eight men. They then proceeded to transport me to the Brookhaven facility, and transferred me into the bed from a stretcher. When they were doing this there was a very little drop, of about four to six inches.

Normally this would not be noticed by anyone. Except what we didn’t know at the time was I was suffering from “Rickets” and every bone in my body was brittle and aching with extreme pain. When they dropped me those few little inches, my almost 800 pounds of girth on top of those sore bones, released an expression of pain and verbal abuse, which at the very least could be interrupted as ungrateful. I was hurting and I lashed out at the first person or people that were near me. Was I right to do so? No! Did I realize it came off as ungrateful? Of course not!
What most people do not realize, is that most of what one sees on TV or in the movies is only a small piece of the actual truth. There was so much more to those tapes that did not make it to the TV. I was so appreciative to those people who took care of me and I expressed it both publicly and privately. They know the truth! Let me state it clearly for the record.

I would not be here today if it wasn’t for God, My wife, my son, Richard, and all of the Medical people in my life!! When I say all the medical people I am not just including the great doctors that have kept me alive but I am also including the nurses of the world, who I believe are the real angels of the hospitals and nurses aides who do all the hard stuff. Things I cannot even think of doing, bless them all. Last but certainly not least are the great EMT people who not once but three times literally saved my life, thank God for them. They are real heroes, and often many of them do a lot of volunteer work for the community.

I am now, I was then and I always will be appreciative to those people who have touched my life.

Hey, I am not so thinned skinned that I bruise too easily in my person by someone calling me a name or something like that. Coming from the background I came from I learned that there were people out in the world who did not understand what it is like, to live with this disease. Some people felt comfortable enough to make fun of me in my life even call me horrible names. As I grew older I realized that it was not my problem, their inability to comprehend and that it was okay for them to just not know.

Yet when I read things today like the following {Micheal is annoying. His whole attitude just sucks. Yeah, it's humiliating to have to be dragged out of your house because you can barely stand under your own weight but short of developing a large-and-in-charge levitation machine, there's not a lot those EMTs can do. I felt terrible for them trying to carry him down those stairs and then get "thanked" by having him bitch about how they were too rough with him and he has a bad back. I'm not that nice. I would have just rolled him down the stairs.}

I just had to respond. Not because I felt I needed to defend myself, the truth is there is really not a good excuse for any one human being to be nasty to another (especially if they are helping you) but I did have to just make clear one thing to all my medical Angels out there and that is…

I unconditionally love them all.

I appreciate them and everything they do for me and all people, especially my brothers and sisters in battle. I even appreciate those of them in the medical field that may not quite get it yet, that is okay their hearts are in the right place.

I never want to sound as if I am or ever was a victim but obviously according to the following quote I did so…{”Michael Hebranko bugged me because he had a major victim complex going on”}.

A “victim complex”, that is so funny to hear someone else have these opinions of you but this is what makes the world go around. The last thing I want to be is a victim. As a victim, where am I going?

As a victim all you do is remain stuck in “Victimville”! There is no good life in “Victimville”!

I want to be and have wanted to be for the longest time…a player. I take full responsibility for my life and where it has been, where it is and where it is going.
I refuse to look at my life as to what I have missed but rather I look at how lucky I am to have had the experiences and opportunities that I have had. I will not look at what I do not have because I have so much!

My life is not that of a victim, I Michael Hebranko, am one of the luckiest people in the world. Yeah, I may have a disease but I have a lot of things. I have Life, Faith, Friends and Family.

I have love! Love for life and all that it includes and I am in love and that love grows with every breath I take.

So call me many things (and I have been called it all) but victim…I am not too sure about that one.

None of us should live our lives coming from the point of “Victim”!

Be a player and make things happen in your life…you have the power…we all do!

Remember, Life is Power! You have the Power to Make Life and to Enhance Life!

Don’t let life pass you by…

Have a great day

Love
Mike

Ps
We may have been the victims of some sort of an atrocity in our lives, all I am saying is that I refuse to live my life as a victim!
Pss
Thanks for the concerns comments and emails about my absence from the blog page. I have had some health issues over the past couple of months. 2009 personally went out with a bang for me. I hope to be back blogging on a regular basis and thank you again for your kind thoughts.