JOHN LIEN, FUHS 1980
John Lien 'Tribes Up'TAKING PART: John Lien takes his place among the graduates of the class of 2008 at the commencement ceremony for Fullerton Union High School.
MARK MARTINEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
MARK MARTINEZ, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Read the Orange County Register story by clicking on "Comments". Part 1 is in comment 1 and part 2 is in comment 2.
posted by Connie @ 10:33 AM
2 Comments
2 Comments:
PART 1:
Friday, June 27, 2008
The part that works best is his heart
A high school kid's life hits an unexpected hurdle as an aneurysm turns his body into a trap. But his dreams aren't easy to stop.
By BARBARA GIASONE
The Orange County Register
First of two parts
FULLERTON Pals on the playground, buddies on their bikes, neighbors in the apartments – John Lien and Jeremy Spencer were inseparable as children.
Mongoose bikes were their tickets to adventure. They pedaled the streets in and around Fullerton, always exploring new neighborhoods, always roaming.
"There were days when I'd say, 'John, let's go over to Placentia,' and John would never say 'No,'" said Spencer, now 18.
"He was up for everything."
But two years ago, on Aug. 4, 2006, Lien's roaming stopped.
He had been called in to work at a local pizza parlor on his day off. While he was on the phone with a customer, he blacked out and fell to the floor. Paramedics were called.
"When I opened my eyes, I was on the ground and I couldn't move anything except my eyes," said Lien, then 16. "I was put inside the ambulance, and fell into a coma."
Friends and family rallied. Nobody knew if the once-active boy would ever be able to walk again.
As the days became weeks, moments of heartbreak interlaced with hope. In mid-September, Lien awoke in Loma Linda University Medical Center. He couldn't speak. He couldn't eat. He couldn't move.
The diagnosis was arteriovenous malformation – an abnormal blood vessel in the brain.
"It's like a balloon popping," said Dr. Kevan Craig, medical director of Pediatric Rehabilitation Medicine at Children's Hospital of Orange County and Children's Hospital, Los Angeles.
Craig, who sees Lien as a patient with another doctor at CHOC, said on a scale of 1-10 in terms of impact, 10 being best, Lien would rate a seven mainly because his cognitive abilities stayed intact.
"John was fortunate," Craig said.
Yet, at the same time, Craig understands that Lien is, in many ways, trapped. He also understands that Lien knows this too.
"He's very intelligent, and one of the downfalls is that he understands too much," Craig added. "He is so good-natured and humorous, but there are many times he has cried because he knows he's not the same."
He spent four months trying to unlock his speech and gulp down his food until a tracheotomy in late December 2006 opened the airwaves.
And, too, the once active teen spent one year in and out of depression.
But Lien couldn't find a pill for his emotional wounds. So, he came up with a plan. It was an audatious, singular idea that, given his condition, sounded impossible:
Lien decided he would return to Fullerton Union High School and graduate, on time, with his friends.
AMERICAN DREAMER
Perhaps determination is in Lien's genes.
His father, Phuong, and his mother, Ngo Ly, escaped Vietnam separately in the early 1980s. The two eventually met in Southern California and bore three sons: David, Tony and John.
David Lien, now 21 and serving with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, was a role model for John. He introduced his youngest brother to the Boys and Girls Club of Fullerton. There, David and his littlest brother would help younger children with their homework or simply play games. When there was a need for volunteers at the games for the disabled, John was there to help.
In fact, early on, John Lien had leadership skills to share. He was class treasurer in fourth and fifth grades, and class vice president in sixth grade.
The youngest Lien discovered other talents in junior high. He had a taste for cooking classes, stirring up batches of Rice Krispie cookies. And when he enrolled at Fullerton Union High School, the kid with the multiple-interests signed up for an ROP cooking class – and sports conditioning.
"I was hoping to be the running back or the quarterback on the junior varsity team," said Lien, his infectious smile hiding a fractured dream.
"It didn't work out."
The first two years of high school, John Lien was on course. He played football, earned straight A's, and lined up as many credits as possible. The future was his to grasp.
"He did everything that was required," said his football coach, Ed DeAvila.
The summer of 2006 found the tenacious kid working at Larry's Pizza in Fullerton, cleaning tables, tossing dough – "doing anything I could to help."
On Aug. 3, his buddy, Jeremy, asked Lien if he wanted to go to Disneyland for the day. Spencer had landed a summer job at the amusement park, and had an extra ticket.
"John said he was tired, and needed to go to work," Spencer remembered. "The next thing I knew, he was in the hospital...
"Even these days, it makes me think how fortunate I am to walk. I should never complain."
It wasn't until the following February that doctors decided Lien could be home-schooled. And maybe, if there was some reasonable progression, he could enroll in school.
But even if that longshot came in, they said Lien would have to go to Fullerton's Troy High School, where accessibility was easier because of the one-story campus.
Lien didn't take the suggestion lightly.
"I wanted to go back to Fullerton (Union)," he said emphatically. "I was scared to go to Troy because I thought the students would be scared of me.
"Fullerton High was my family."
The dream lingered.
John Lien was determined to graduate with the Class of 2008, no matter what it took to get out on the stadium field and reach for his diploma.
(CONTINUES IN COMMENT 2)
PART 2:
John Lien 'Tribes Up'
A boy becomes a man even as he struggles to speak and regain his mobility. Friends, family and his own will pull him through.
By BARBARA GIASONE
THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Second of two parts:
EDITOR'S NOTE: Two years ago, high school student and would-be football player John Lien passed out. When he woke up he was virtually paralyzed from the chin down, the victim of an aneurysm. He had one goal – to graduate, on time, with his friends at Fullerton Union High School.
FULLERTON John Lien could roll.
Last fall, as he started what was supposed to be his senior year of high school, he couldn't do some of the things he used to do. Like eat without help. Or swallow. Or speak clearly.
But Lien could move a few muscles in his hand. And, with those muscles, he could make his manual wheelchair roll.
In fact, the once active student athlete – the kid whose dream of playing running back on the school football team had been cruelly transformed by a brain aneurysm – could roll well enough that the principal and a few teachers at Fullerton Union High School had worked out a way to let him return to their school, hisschool, instead of spending a year as a newcomer at the better-equipped Troy High.
Ed DeAvila , a football coach and resource specialist, was called in to assess Lien's academic and physical capabilities.
The student, who by last November had spent nearly a year in and out of hospitals and rehabilitation centers, immediately reaffirmed to DeAvila his goal: To graduate with the Fullerton Union High School Class of 2008.
"When I walked into the Liens' apartment, John was lying on a hospital bed in the living room," DeAvila, 44, recounted. "I never had a student as severely stricken as John.
"At the same time, I never had a student so eager to get back to school."
Despite medical barriers, Lien was confident he could handle a full school day.
But there were barriers. Lien couldn't move his dominant left hand, and the coach realized the boy would need a scribe.
"Before I left that day, I touched John's right hand and recited the football team's mantra: 'Tribe it up,'" DeAvila said.
"I knew he couldn't lift his hand to do the "high-five" part of the ritual, but I held hope that someday we could slap our palms and repeat the FUHS Indians' huddle oath."
Enter Mr. Rainbow, Lien's eventual pet name for his new educational aide.
HELP FROM HIS FRIENDS
Daniel Posthuma, 23, the son of a teacher and a student at Cal State Fullerton, had worked at Disneyland and in restaurants. But at those jobs, he knew, he could be easily replaced.
"I wanted to have an impact on someone," Posthuma said. "And I guess I wanted to work with someone who would impact me."
When the pair met, Lien took a reserved approach, yet intermittently cracked jokes. Posthuma knew he would have to teach his new charge how to take tests, how to deal with multiple choices and how to handle in-depth homework.
Lien understood concepts illustrated through metaphors, but he couldn't talk. English was a hard subject for him; he had trouble reading and defining words. He had temporarily lost his vocabulary. His eyesight was impaired.
Yet, at the same time, Posthuma also was learning from Lien. Lessons about patience, courage, determination.
There were others who welcomed their classmate back to school.
Early in the year, occupational therapist Emy Tome entered Lien's circle of care.
"When I first met John, he couldn't dress himself, bathe or walk," Tome said. "He could barely read in context or print. After all, his left side was completely paralyzed.
"But almost every day I saw improvement," she said. "He is one of the most motivated young men I've ever worked with."
Last month, Tome read a litany of John's achievements, which included a stronger voice and the ability to partially dress himself.
Yet, there were some frustrating failures.
"John could only take one step using a support device, and was disappointed," she said. "But he knows his body is weak, so he's not crying as much when he can't achieve what he sets out to do."
Tome said social growth – being able to hang out with friends and go to the restroom on his own – have made a tremendous difference.
Plodding through his studies, Lien pulled a 3.6 grade point average by the end of his senior year. At the awards banquet, he received a standing ovation after he was presented $2,000 in scholarship money from the Jewish Mothers Fund to attend Fullerton College – where he has been accepted for the summer session.
People logging on to Lien's MySpace link found the motto, "Wishing to Walk Again," and his mood: "Hopeful."
A FEELING
On June 12, nearly two years after the devastating medical blow challenged John Lien's future, he was rolling again in his electric wheelchair, arriving early for his school's 2008 commencement.
Dressed in Fullerton High's red-and-white graduation gown, John Lien gripped the joystick and sailed across the field to his place alongside a row of metal chairs. He kept his name card in his mouth, so when he got to the podium he wouldn't accidentally drop the information.
Hoots and hollers blew through the bleachers when Lien accepted his Class of 2008 graduation diploma.
(Later he was asked: Did the crowd offer a standing ovation? "I'm not that cool," he said, grinning.)
Afterward, his parents, his buddies and his teachers – and his lifelong pal, Jeremy Spencer – surrounded Lien.
His oldest brother, David, called from Afghanistan.
"He told me to keep up the good work," John Lien said.
Coach DeAvila was waiting on the stadium sidelines, eager to follow Lien through the gates.
"Tribe it up!" DeAvila exclaimed.
Lien shakily raised his right hand. DeAvila slapped his palm.
Tribe it up.
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home