Nipples For Cripples

It’s been about 5-6 years since my brother Dave asked me if I wanted to join his fantasy football league (FFL). I always play in at least one league per season. He said that the league was run by his friend Jim, whom I had never met. The cost to join was $50 plus $5 for add/drop fees; it was not for a lot of money, but enough to make it interesting. Anyways, I agreed to play in the league and it was a lot of fun.
Some people just auto-draft their FFL team and just make sure their line-up is all ready for Sunday, and that is all. From the outside looking in, it is nothing but a bunch of grown (Usually) men, forming a “Fantasy” team and keeping track of points. However, anybody who actually plays FFL can attest to the fact that it is usually much more than that. It attracts people with a competitive nature, and there is a ton of strategy involved. You can actually tell a lot about a person by the way they draft their FFL roster alone. People can get very involved in their FFL league and check it multiple times per day. We are always checking injury reports, doing research, offering trades, and of course my favorite hidden aspect; trash talking.

Jim has always been a really good FFL player and “commissioner”. I have played in his league for years, I also played in another league in which in played. Over the past 5-6 years I have gotten to know Jim a little bit here and there. I have never actually met him, but I feel like I have. He is also very competitive, and so we have had our share of “disputes” over the years. But it has always been good-natured. He has always been a very skilled player, funny guy, and dependable. By “dependable”, I mean that he has never tried to screw anybody out of money, either by not paying the winners, or by not paying his league fees. You can also always count on him to be a fair commissioner and not try to skew the rules into his favor. I mention these points because they are aspects of FFL that occur all the time.
Anyways, one option of any FFL is to “name” your team. Players usually come up with some clever pun like “Pimpin aint Brees-y”, or “My Reggie Bush burns when I AP”. However, Jim’s teams have always had the same name; “Nipples for Cripples”. His avatar is a .GIF file of a pair of giant shaking breasts. One day I asked my brother why Jim always used such a bizarre team name. What I learned next has changed my perspective on life, and it should change yours also.
My Brother Dave was a nursing home administrator for about 13 years. I knew that he had become friends with Jim through work, but I always assumed he was a co-worker for some reason. However, Dave told me that Jim is a resident at the nursing home because he is a quadriplegic. I had no idea whatsoever, it was shocking.
When we communicate with people whom we have never met in person, over time our brain subconsciously forms it own assumed image of them. Prior to this knowledge, I pictured Jim as a stocky maintenance guy who fixed things at the nursing home. I pictured him as a hard-working family man who was stuck working a job that he was far over qualified for. But, because there is not much opportunity in the area, he probably stayed at the job because he needed the health insurance benefits for his family. Over time he stopped looking for other work because he had a number of years in at the nursing home, and so he just became his job. He probably did some side jobs like mowing lawns for his neighbors in the summer and plowing their driveways in the winter. The extra money was nice because he used it to buy toys, like a 4-wheeler and a snow mobile. I fancied him as a bit of an outdoorsman. He probably had a hunting and fishing license and he decorated his home office with taxidermy. And on football Sundays, he invites the guys over and they drink and watch the games in his man cave. They probably got very into the games and yell at the television too. He must have been all of these things because that is how I had pictured him for the past 5 years.
But, that is not what he has been doing. That is not what he has been doing at all. What he actually has been doing since July of 1993 is a far less desirable state of reality. If it were possible to describe his reality in just two words, I would choose “pure torture”. I assure you that every serial killer who has been locked up in solitary confinement since 1993 has lived like a god compared his life. And perhaps the worst aspect of that truth, is the fact that he in an innocent victim.

“The puffing sound that it makes never stops. Whether it's 8 seconds, 10 seconds, 12 seconds or whatever time span it's set at to give you a breath of air, that's when the machine cycles again. The same pattern every minute... of every hour... of every day and every night and every week. Almost like the Chinese water torture but if it stops working, I stop breathing.”

“Occasionally, the ventilator hose would disconnect from the trach in my neck, and I'm still not sure why. But after the machine detected that it was no longer connected, an alarm would sound. Lying in bed hearing the alarm and hoping someone would hear it and come quickly to connect it so I could breathe again was the worst panic I can remember.”
Those are Jim’s own words trying to explain exactly what he has been doing since 1993. He has been living his life while having to rely on a ventilator to breath. But that it not all, if it happens to malfunction, he cannot try to fix it. All he can do is hope that some under-paid stranger who works at the nursing home will come to his rescue in time. He cannot do anything on his own, he depends on the staff members to feed, cloth, bathe, etc.
In July of 1993, Jim very well might have been doing all of those things that I mentioned previously. He was 37, married, and the father of 2 daughters aged 5 and 9. He and his wife had been on a weekend camping trip with another couple. They were out on a bicycle ride when he was hit by a drunk driver named; Barbara Calato. She pled guilty to DWI, had to pay a $600 fine and lost her license for 1 year. That is all the consequences received by the person who stole everything from him. To this day, the woman who took his life has never attempted to contact him in any form.
After all of the physical and psychological pain that he has survived, he doesn’t care much for pity. He accepted his fate a long time ago, he had no choice. The passing of time has a magical ability to allow people to cope with just about anything. Jim said that a “good” day for him used to be one in which he had spent less time in tears than not. His situation is so dire that he cannot even wipe away his own tears in order to hide it from anyone when he is feeling really down.
When my brother told me that Jim was a quadriplegic, I remember thinking about it for quite a while. One thought I had was; “Wow, he seemed like such a normal person”. I was being very naive because Jim is in fact very “normal”. The fact is, anybody who has ever ridden a bicycle could just as easily be sitting in his wheelchair right now. Each and every time that I log into my FFL league and see those giant tits shaking, it is a constant reminder of the fragility of life. It has helped me put my own life into perspective, and I suggest that you do the same
I am tired of living my life built around my fears rather than my dreams. I have never once considered a life with no aspirations. Jim said that he “has no goals”, his condition does not even afford him this. I have tried to fathom a life absent of the opportunity to even have goals. It has served me as a swift kick in the ass. I will pursue my goals because Jim can’t. I will not sweat the small stuff, because life is too short. I wish that I could have the word; “Jim” tattooed across my forehead. That way, every time that I think that I’m having a bad day; I will realize that I am just being a little bitch.
So, the next time that you get stuck in traffic and punch your steering wheel, think about Jim. The next time that you get pissed because your cell phone is taking too long to open a web site, I want you to think about Jim. There are so many of us who snap at the drop of a dime because of the smallest of hassles. Things can always be worse, I promise you. Most of us concentrate most of our time and attention on all the bullshit in our lives while neglecting all that is good. What kind of life is that? What we are actually doing is choosing to live a life of grief, while Jim has no choice.
But, if you can learn to focus all of your attention instead on the “good”, it will change your life completely. You will be free of the invisible chains that keep us trapped. Empathy can be a powerful tool if we allow it. Let the victims be the victims. Nothing changes if nothing changes.

http://www.angelfire.com/nv/2005/