“We will be attaching the [electronic stimulation] to your thigh.”

I heard these words as the therapist at the next mat explained the process to her patient. E-stim was no big deal. Then I remembered. Nearly two years ago, the first time E-stim was attached to my thigh … nothing. “Higher,” I kept telling Dr. Marie Morgan, my physical therapist.

She kept cranking up the power until I joked she was dimming the lights in the building. Nothing. The paralysis that had put me in a wheelchair continued. I could barely feel a pin prick in the thigh. Attempts to stimulate my legs with E-stim produced no muscle response.

June 3, 2012. 5:45 a.m. I awoke with pain in my lower back. I immediately recognized it for what is was. An aortic dissection. As my cell phone had poor coverage at the farm, I walked into the den to use the land line. I dialed 911. The dispatcher called for an ambulance, then stayed on the line with me. Suddenly, I fell to the floor, paralyzed from the waist down. I began losing feeling in my toes, and the numbness was spreading up my leg. I assumed that I was dying, and that when the numbness hit my heart, I would be dead. So I lay there on the floor, phone in one hand, cell phone in the other desperately texting my wife, Margaret, (who had stayed in Shreveport) and my sister, so she could rush to the farm. I didn’t want a stranger telling my mother I was dead.

The ambulance came and took me to the hospital in Longview. Doctors were poking me with pins. Nothing. Margaret was stuck in Shreveport, not knowing if I would be airlifted to Shreveport, Dallas or Houston. I looked up to see my daughter, coincidentally a patient in the hospital at that time, being pushed in a wheelchair into the ER by her mother. A few minutes later my sister arrived, glad I had made it to the hospital. It was quickly decided that I would be flown to Houston. As the helicopter arrived, a doctor stuck me in the toe one last time. I felt it. For the first time, I thought I might actually survive this. As the stretcher carried me to the helipad, the last thing I could see was my daughter, crying.

I arrived in Houston in good spirits. In ICU, I was informed my wife was already there. Impossible for Margaret to have beaten the helicopter. I heard the double doors of the ICU burst open and a voice declare, “I’m Margaret Shehee Cole, and I’m looking for my husband.” Shannon Terry Wiley, Margaret’s best friend, and a Woodlands resident, breezed into the cubicle and would not leave my side. An hour later, another voice was heard: “My name is Margaret Shehee Cole, and I’m looking for my husband.” Hilarity ensued.

As night fell and it was time to go to sleep, I was a bit worried. Statistically, I knew I should not survive the night, but I felt that if I awoke alive the next morning, I would make it. After 10 days in ICU, I was transferred to TIRR, ranked as the No. 3 rehabilitation center in the United States. About two weeks into my 28-day stay there, my doctor casually remarked one day that it appeared that I was going to survive, something I had known three weeks earlier. By the time I left Houston, I could wriggle my toes a bit, and transfer from a wheelchair to a bed or car.

Finally, July 11, 38 days later and 50 pounds lighter (I called it the dissection diet; Margaret kept me alive by bringing me fresh watermelon each morning), we came home. The next day, I was at the LSU Health Shreveport School of Allied Health Professions Faculty Practice Clinic to begin outpatient therapy. At that time, I was so weak, it took nearly an hour for a CNA to dress me. My occupational therapist, Amanda Pearce, spent much of her time trying to bend my legs enough

so that I could begin to reach my feet so that I could put on socks. With non-responsive legs, Morgan concentrated on building up upper body strength. Then one day, in the pool, at the end of the session, my hip flexors kicked in. Muscle response! One by one, my muscles have returned. I began walking in these giant

ARGO braces. I built up to a lap, taking 11 to 12 minutes, then two laps. Now I can walk a lap in six to seven minutes. I can dress and bathe myself.

Pearce is currently trying to build up my glutes so that I can move on to smaller braces.

Two years I have spent with these remarkable women. They have never given up on me, even when I am not the world’s easiest patient to deal with. They have never doubted me, have always been there to support and encourage me.

Any patient would be very lucky to have either of them as a therapist. I am doubly blessed.

People tell me that I have such a good attitude about my situation, and marvel that I am not depressed. On that Sunday morning, lying on the floor, thinking that I was dying, what I was worried about was that I would die before I was loaded into the ambulance.

If I died on the floor, they would have to wake up my 89-year-old mother and let her see me lying dead on the floor to identify me. If I died in the driveway in the ambulance, they would rush me to the hospital performing CPR until a doctor could declare me dead, and my sister could break the news to my mother. Depressed?

Two years ago my life’s ambition was to not die on the floor but to live just a few more minutes and die 50 feet away in the driveway. Every day that I wake up alive is a gift.