Notes from John and Elvis

John is a 44 year old with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  He is confined to a motorized wheelchair and has extensive muscle weakness from the neck down.  But this doesn’t keep him down.  John is truly an inspiration for anyone with physical disabilities.  He works in an office setting for a large hotel in Orlando, Florida; he is both independent and very outgoing and he was blessed with a fantastic sense of humor. 

In May 2005, John became the recipient of Elvis, one of our two year old golden retrievers. 

Elvis has changed John’s life in so many ways, his attitude at home and work has improved, he has more independence, he feels more confident going out in public places, but most of all the two have become “best friends.” 

John uses a voice activated software program which allows him to send emails and keep us updated on what is going on in his and Elvis’ life.  Because these emails make us laugh and sometimes they bring tears to our eyes, we thought it would be an inspiration to others if we shared one of John’s (with his approval) emails every now and then with our web site readers.

February 5, 2006
Subject:  John is Back

Hi All,

I figured I would start off with a group message giving the highlights of my vacation.

I returned home from my cruise vacation yesterday.  I have to tell you before I give you some of the details that I had a good time.  That might be difficult to understand when I tell you some of the wonderful event’s that occurred throughout my cruise vacation starting from day one.  But I really did have a good time.

My vacation started a week ago, Saturday, January 28th.  Transportation from Orlando to Miami was on a bus with a company (whose name we can’t mention.)   This was my fourth time using them to get down to Miami.  This is the third time that I’ve gotten to the pickup location and the bus came and the driver was never notified that I was in a motorized wheelchair.  He was not happy about seeing my wheelchair at all.  First, he had to make telephone calls to confirm.  Confirm what?  I guess that I was in a wheelchair.  He now attempted to open the lift on the bus.  (Yes, thank God the bus that came did have the wheelchair lift.)  He couldn’t get it to work.  It took forever and he was getting more and more aggravated.  He finally got us in the bus and throughout the trip he let everyone know at each additional stop that I was the reason he was late.  He was the rudest bus driver I have ever seen.  It took over seven hours to get from Orlando to Miami.  (I have already written management at this company.)

Once on board, things were OK.  I took Elvis with me and he was Mr. Popularity.  This was fine by me because it caused a lot of interaction with other guests for me also.  The first night I started to have a sore throat.  I looked for the Tylenol that I brought but couldn’t find any.  The next day I still had the sore throat so I decided to go down to medical and get some Tylenol.  I went down there and the nurse said that I should see the doctor.  At first I didn’t want to and then I thought to myself, “self, if this is something more, get rid of it quickly since this is only the second day of the cruise.”  Well, I was checked by the doctor and after listening to my chest with that stethoscope, the doctor wanted x-rays.  Didn’t realize that this was going to be a portion of my vacation but I agreed.  Found out I have pneumonia in my left lung.  Kind of advanced because shortly after that I was getting antibiotics intravenously, I was out of my chair and on the hospital bed and the nurses were trying to get secretion out of my lungs.  In between all of this stuff going on they stuck this mask in front of me to breathe into.

I had to go back for the next three mornings and afternoons for the same treatments.  The last two days were just going for the mask treatment.  At this point the doctor thought I could do oral antibiotics.

Now, in between all of this, let’s go back to day number two (or was it the first day?) of the cruise.  I was relaxing in the sun by the pool and then when I wanted to go back to the room my wheelchair wouldn’t move.  It was dead and I had no clue what was going on with it.  These two guys tried to help me and they couldn’t get it going either.  They got someone from the tour company to come over who worked the lighting and speakers and such thinking that he might know more about electronics.  This guy was able to get the wheelchair to manual and then he pushed me down to the front desk. He put it back into regular drive and the thing started going again.  This wonderful event occurred four times throughout the sailing.  I didn’t harp on any of these events, but there was one point where I came close to losing it when the wheelchair died at the medical center after treatment and the only way to get me back to the room was in a manual wheelchair.  I figured the chair definitely was dead now.  About an hour later, (if you could have only seen this) one of the doctors from the medical clinic was at my cabin door with the now working wheelchair.  He couldn’t understand how it started working but took advantage of the opportunity and drove it up to my cabin.  He did this while the chair was on the highest speed.  All he kept saying was “how do you do this”.  This doctor was over six feet tall and could hardly even fit in the wheelchair.  We laughed about it every time I returned to the medical clinic.

If I haven’t said it earlier, the medical staff was great.  We turned into a family.  The day I had to say goodbye was really strange because one of the nurses couldn’t stop crying.  And they loved Elvis.

I come to Elvis.  Taking Elvis was the best thing I did.  This dog and I are so connected.  He was perfect the entire trip.  He had no issue with the seven hour drive down to Miami.  When we stopped, my attendant did take him out for a walk.  As long as Elvis saw me in the bus he was fine.  He wasn’t going to let the attendant bring him too far away.  On board he did everything I needed him to do.  He was pushing elevator buttons; He was picking up things for me.  At dinner, he would go right under the table and lay down until we were finished he came to just about every show with me and just lay down in front of me.  Some cruise lines use pellets in a box for the animal to go to the bathroom.  Royal Caribbean puts either grass or wood chip/mulch.  This time it was wood chips/mulch.  Every time I took Elvis to the box he went to the bathroom in it.  He was just so good.  Ok, it wasn’t every time but just about.  He did poop by the pool one time and no one had any issues and everyone was willing to help me to get it up and in the trash.  Everyone on the ship wanted Elvis.  I was constantly being told how beautiful he was.  Of course I told them he took after my side of the family.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get many pictures with going to the hospital section daily and then racing to get some sunshine and then preparing for the evening shows, picture moments never seemed to occur.  I do have to tell you about one night when we went to see the ice skating show on board.  Elvis was laying down prior to the show starting.  When the music started he got up into a sitting position and literally watched the first portion of the show.  His head followed the ice skaters and they danced around.  It was really cool.

The shows were really good.  Some special entertainment on board were Margret Cho (comedian) also Charo (many would remember her from Las Vegas shows and many guest appearances on the television show, The Love Boat.)  There were several other comedians and performers.  There also was this great hypnotist.  I wish I understood how they do what they do.  Of course the ship’s dancers and anyone who knows me knows how I love dance.  I lucked out by being in this area where the dancers were doing rehearsals one day. They allowed me to stay (I think because they wanted Elvis there) and of course I did.

I didn’t get to go to any of the islands because I really was afraid the chair might breakdown and I would prefer to break down on the ship than on some island.  I’m not able to go back to work until the doctor says I am fully recovered.

I know it’s really strange, but I did have a good time.  I think Elvis was a big part in that.  His company and the company he got to come over to me because he was there.

John and Elvis