Author Mo Gerhardt tells what it is like living life while being diagnosed with a terminal disease. Not only from all the bumps, bruises and surgeries from his muscular dystrophy, but also after broken bones from a bus accident and loss of vision in one eye due to a separate non-related medical condition. Instead of taking his diagnosis as a death sentence, Gerhardt uses it as motivation to accomplish everything that a "normal" person aspires to. From receiving his Bachelors and Masters degrees from Michigan State University to competing and medaling in both national and international adaptive sports competitions, he continues to defy doctors' predictions. He continues to give back through his motivational speaking to students and being an activist for the disability community. Through it all, Gerhardt proves that it's not the diagnosis that determines one's outcome.

PERSPECTIVE from AN ELECTRIC CHAIR

By Mo Gerhardt

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2011 Mo Gerhardt
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4670-3612-2

Contents

Acknowledgments.....................ixForward.............................xiiiPrologue............................xviiChapter 1...........................1Chapter 2...........................11Chapter 3...........................18Chapter 4...........................25Chapter 5...........................33Chapter 6...........................41Chapter 7...........................52Chapter 8...........................61Chapter 9...........................72Chapter 10..........................77Chapter 11..........................88Chapter 12..........................101Chapter 13..........................106Chapter 14..........................114Chapter 15..........................120Chapter 16..........................127Chapter 17..........................137Chapter 18..........................146Chapter 19..........................150Chapter 20..........................162Chapter 21..........................171Epilogue............................181Encore..............................185

Chapter One

Ten Little fingers, ten little toes and a loud cry. Everything was normal as I made my first appearance into the world during the early hours of October 16, 1977. My parents, John and Ann Gerhardt, were thrilled to have their second healthy baby boy, Matthew Fox Gerhardt. Thank God, I wasn't a girl—not that I don't wonder what my life would currently be like if I was born a girl, but I don't know if I could have gone through life having the name Gretchen Ann Gerhardt. My initials alone would have said it all—GAG! Sometimes I wonder what goes through parents' minds when they name their babies. Don't they think about the ridicule children will go through growing up?

Even though I was born as Matthew, I will always have my brother, David, to thank for the name "Mo". He wasn't yet three years old when I was born, and the name Matthew was too difficult for him to pronounce. As hard as he tried, all that would come out was Matt-Mo. That being said, my future was forever plotted as my parents also started calling me Mo.

Sure, I've heard my fair share of "Where's Larry and Curly" jokes, and was asked when I was going to go "mow the lawn,", but the name Mo has become as much a part of me as other famous nicknames have for others. Just as George Herman Ruth doesn't have the same appeal as Babe Ruth, Matthew Fox Gerhardt doesn't connect with me as well as Mo does.

My mom was actually grocery shopping when she went into labor. A quick ride to the hospital and a couple hours later, out I came. Dr. Don Good was the obstetrician. His wife would later be my kindergarten teacher—two early signs that, yes, my childhood, in the simplest terms, would be just that ... good!

Both of my parents were school teachers within the Traverse City, Michigan, public school system. My mom took the remainder of the 1977 school year off on maternity leave, but went back to teaching the fall of 1978. That of course meant finding daycare for me. Through a friend, my mom had been advised to contact Bonnie Sonnemann, who had also given birth to a boy, Kevin, in May of 1977. Bonnie was looking to add a baby about Kevin's age to her daycare. It ended up being one of the most significant phone calls my mom has ever made.

At eleven months, you really don't have a say in who your friends are. It's simply whomever your parents take you to go play with. That's how it was for Kevin and me. We became friends before we knew we even were friends. Due to our looks, we'd never be mistaken as brothers, but I'm sure I spent more hours growing up together with Kevin than I did with my own brother. Whether it was building with Lincoln Logs indoors, making snowmen outdoors, or running around in our Underoos both in and outdoors, we did it together. After being together, just the two of us, a third was added to the mix a couple years later as Bonnie had another baby boy, Kyle.

Three is never the easiest number to play with as you always feel like you are one person short or have one too many. Even so, we always seemed to manage to come up with rules or adaptations to make sure things were even; for better or worse, that would become easier to do down the road.

I basically grew up with a baseball glove in one hand and a ball in the other. Sports are huge in my family, and baseball easily tops the list. My dad played all through his school years, spent nearly 30 years coaching high school baseball, and was the Field Director for the American Legion Junior Baseball program in Traverse City for 20 years. David was easily the top catcher in Traverse City, if not the state, for his age, and earned MVP honors his senior year on the varsity team.

I remember playing countless hours of whiffle ball with my brother in our backyard at 2206 Aspen Drive. My mom was a great sport as we literally ran permanent base paths into the grass. We always felt like we were professional players as we got to use some of the equipment our dad had for his teams. Best of all was our homeplate. We didn't have to use somebody's mitt, a hat, or any other odd toy lying around; we had a real home plate—at least to us it was real. It was a portable, heavy-duty rubberized homeplate you would use on indoor turf fields or with batting cages. No other kids had one, so we knew we had something special.

First base was the corner post of the deck that overhung the yard. Second base was a dirt patch we made by basically ripping out the grass and kicking the ground with our feet. After a few scoldings from Mom, I think she realized it was a lost cause when one day she found Dad helping us form our dirt patch for second base. It would turn out to be just one of the many things she would give up when it came to baseball and all three of her Gerhardt boys! Third base was a large tree that just happened to be placed perfectly to complete our field of dreams. The previous family that lived in the house had a fenced-in garden located in what would be left-center field. Rather than having to delay the game to open the gate and retrieve balls hit in there, this area became an extra outfielder. Any ball hit in the garden was considered an out, ghost-runners became a common term, and two brothers pretending to be the current All-Stars of the day was the norm.

I miss those days of crushing a white whiffle ball deep into the outfield grass with my giant red super-sized plastic bat, creating my own play-by-play call when it came down to the bottom of the ninth with two outs, a full count, and I'm the winning run. Most of all, I simply miss just being able to put on my glove and play catch with my brother, not because we now live in different places, have full-time jobs, or are too old for such leisurely activity, but because even if I did have a glove on, I doubt I would physically be able to catch the ball, and there is no way I could throw it far enough back to him. I'm a very positive and optimistic person, but lots of times it's those simple things in life I'm not able to do that get me down more so than the obvious bigger ones.

I don't remember the specific day I was told I had muscular dystrophy. There wasn't a specific medical examination that I recall. I do remember various doctor offices and wishing I had fish tanks with the same exotic fish. I'm sure my parents sat down with me one day and, in the simplest terms they could, explained why I was slower than everybody else; why I couldn't race up the stairs as fast as my...