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| christiantelegraph |
He is a former high school basketball star who set records at his school and in the state of Indiana. Looking forward to his sophomore year playing for Hope College, he pushed himself to stay in peak physical condition. While engaged in the so-called “insanity workout,” he heard a loud pop in his back – and within hours he knew something was horribly wrong, reports Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service.
“October 28th changed my life,” Joel Haler, 20, told a packed New Covenant Worship Center, where his father, Eric, is the senior pastor. After he heard the pop, the pain and weakness in his legs gradually intensified over the next several hours. By nightfall, he checked himself into the ER because he had trouble walking.
“By the end of the next day I was paralyzed from the waist down,” he recounts.
Doctors performed MRIs; he was transferred from hospital to hospital. He had two spinal taps, which resulted in headaches worse than migraines.“We don’t know what’s going on,” doctors informed him initially. Various theories emerged. They said he might have Guillain Barre syndrome, a rare autoimmune disease trigged by an infection, which causes non-trauma-related paralysis. Other doctors wanted to do exploratory surgery, believing there may have been a trauma associated with the loud pop that triggered his condition.Lacking conclusive answers, there was one thing doctors were certain about: if sensation ever returned to his legs, he would have to re-learn how to walk.
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