Autho Jeff LeJeune with Post Marked Baltimore

Growing up the last of five children, I had both the privilege and the burden of watching my older siblings. One current throughout my family's life was basketball. I followed my brothers' footsteps and worked hard to be an All-State basketball player in high school, earning a spot on the McNeese State University basketball team. I sat out my first year in college and then joined the team my second. It was rough; constant pain in my knees, achilles tendons, not to mention three badly sprained ankles, made it impossible to compete like I wanted to. I turned to drinking and the night life of a college athlete to assuage my frustration in knowing that my basketball career, everything I had worked so hard to attain as an athlete, was seemingly out of my control. On a night in February, 1999, everything changed. I was working on some homework in the computer lab at school when suddenly the most violent of shakes hit me. I tried to sleep that night, bundled up in layers upon layers of clothes, but I couldn't. I know now that had I gone to sleep, the poison in my blood would have reached my heart and killed me. I didn't fall asleep, though, and my trainer and assistant coach took me to the emergency room. My hand was swelling, and that night was maybe the worst of my life. The pain was relentless, and the nurses could not administer any stronger medication without the approval of a doctor. I didn't know how fatal this disease could have been at the time as I do now, but I finally passed out that night somehow knowing my life would never be the same again. I spent the next two weeks in the hospital. Doctors were in and out initially, and the head of the Center of Disease Control said he'd never seen a pathogen take over somebody's body so quickly. Monday afternoon I'm practicing with the basketball team. Five hours later I'm in the hospital fighting for my life. I changed in those two weeks in the hospital. I watched my mother cry and the outpouring of support