If I would have known brain scans would have been in my scrapbook at the end of last year it might have prepared me for the journey that lay ahead. It was the biggest blizzard of the winter months and the house was cold and an eerie silence surrounded everything. It wasn’t a peaceful silence. Nothing was peaceful about it. The phone ringing broke that silence.

“Hello, this is Dr. Gardner from St.Patrick’s hospital in Missoula.” There was a pause. “Hello, are you still there, Miss Trosello?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.”

“This is regarding your brain scans. We suggest that you get down here immediately.”

Those next four months after that phone call were spent doing agonizing tests and sitting the waiting rooms of busy doctor’s offices. I had never in my life realized that I would know so much about MRIs and head CTs. That innocent bruise on my head wasn’t so innocent anymore. The severe headaches pounded like a hammer and my eyesight became blurry. There were no answers. It felt like everything was falling apart one painkiller at a time.

After about a thousand doctors later the results all came into view: a rare bone cancer called fibborus displasia was taking over my bones. There are very few cases of this disease and some are worse then others. It’s most common in children and young adults and many doctors do not know what to do about it. In the meantime the headaches grew worse. Since the doctors were stalling my mom grew impatient. It was really hard for her to see her only child in pain. Nights were sleepless for the both of us. She spent hours reading books and looking at various websites for answers.

Over the next few months, my troubles seemed to have no end. I suffered disorientation, depression, and an eating disorder. With so much happening at once, I wanted to stop and take a deep breath.

So I did. With lots of help from lots of people, I began to re-think all sorts of things about my life. I came to realized that all my troubles hadn’t started with this disease. Even before I got sick, there were things wrong. In fact, maybe some things had gotten better in a way.

Before all this I was going on a completely different path. I was almost lost in the beginning years of adolescence, the parties, and lies and way too many late nights. At that point I really did respect and care more for my loser friends than I did for my own parents and I knew that really hurt them. I regret that all now.

It was my sixteenth birthday this last January and it was the first time in about two years that my mom told me with sincerity that she thought that I was growing up to be a very mature young lady, and she didn’t know as a person how I deal with everything that I have been through. And that meant a lot to me. Even if getting sick was one of the most terrible things that happened to me I think that I can say it changed my life.

Music had always been a big part of his life. He has been an active musician since he was a young boy. However, young Thomas Elliott has not seen any especially inspirational live performances in his life. He had not seen anything so vibrant and colorful as to change him as a person and bring out his true passions. This would change January 11, 2007.

In his old “dull” life, he once caught wind of a live performance in Missoula, Montana, at the Wilma Theatre. He heard that an old band, full of memory, was playing the roots reggae music that Tom has enjoyed for some time. This band was brought into existence in the mid-sixties by a man named Bob Marley. This group of reggae musicians is called the Wailers. They were big through the late sixties through the seventies until Marley’s tragic death. To Toms advantage, they were now small enough to play in the unpopulated state of Montana, close to Polson. After he heard of this great opportunity, he promptly went down to Missoula and got tickets in advance.

There was one catch, however. He knew he had to drive the dangerous roads of Western Montana from Polson to Missoula to catch this performance. He developed a fear of driving in anything other than light, rural traffic due to a hellacious car accident. He was going much too fast down a back road when he swerved around a cat and destroyed a section of barbed-wire fence. His only way of getting to this spectacle of wonder was to face his fear and drive down, on one of the most dangerous highways, to Missoula.

When the calendar showed the magical date of January 11, 2007, Tom departed with two good friends towards the city of Missoula. He borrowed his mothers green Ford Explorer for his expedition to the concert. He was very tense during the first fifteen miles. As hunger overcame the young men, they stopped in Ronan at a Subway. After the quenched themselves, and left, Tom was much more relaxed and the rest of the drive was relatively smooth sailing.

The arrival to Missoula was somewhat early, for it was six o’clock and the doors of the Wilma opened at seven. Tom and his crew with him met some other good friends who were also attending this spectacle. The clock approached seven as the young men mingled. The clock was closing in on seven so Tom decided to head over to the Wilma. The line was long before the great doors of the Wilma. Tom handed the green ticket to the big man at the entrance and excitedly grabbed the ticket stub as he entered the building.

The young men anxiously awaited the opening band to play, as they were so early to the concert. Being ten minutes after seven, they had to wait a considerable amount of time to hear some music. They found desirable seats in the audience due to being early. As the clock approached eight oclock, Tom noticed people filling the section in front of the stage. Tom hurried then to find a good spot to see the musicians on stage perfectly. As he mingled with the good people in the crowd, he noticed that he could relate with them and he felt as if he were at home.

The opening band was amazing, a delicious combination of guitar, keyboards, bass, tenor sax, and drums. They were a nice instrumental group.

When the Wailers got on stage, the crowds went absolutely crazy and Tom knew he was in for an awesome show. The crowd piled into the front of the auditorium, where Tom was. He was glad he got up there ahead of time and he saw the band perfectly. When the Wailers started performing Tom just then had a great sense of belonging. The sweet music pierced his soul and he felt like he was flying. Tom danced rhythmically with the crown and no one could ever know what kind of bliss he was in that night.

A whistle blew and a yellow flag appeared on the ground. “Offsides on the offense,” the referee proclaimed. Our team had just scored and we were going for two points. Now because of the offsides call we would have to go nine yards to get the extra two points instead of three yards. We broke from the huddle and I lined up at my position, running back. The play was a counter to the left. The center snapped the ball and I faked to the right and then took off left where the quarterback handed me the ball. As I ran I saw our wide receiver make a block on the linebacker, opening a pathway to the endzone. I was just about in the endzone when I saw a defender coming. I dove with the ball outstretched and the ball hit the inside of the pylon as the defender tackled me out of bounds. I anxiously waited for the touchdown signal by the referee and finally he signaled a touchdown. My teammates and I ecstatically celebrated. This would unknowingly be my last play I would ever play in a football game.

Throughout the fifth grade to my seventh grade year I frequently would come home from sport practices, especially football and wrestling, with bruises, abnormally, all over my body. During the summer of my sixth grade year I went to a hospital in Oregon to have tests done to see what was wrong. The Oregon doctors came up with the diagnosis shortly after the game which I scored the two points in. The diagnosis was that I had dysfibrinogenemia, a bleeding disorder. This caused the abnormal bruising that continually appeared on my body. Dysfibrinogenemia is a very rare disorder with only 400 known cases. There is minimal information on it, so there are many questions of affects of the disorder.

Because of all the unknowns, I was told not to play football or wrestle anymore, for the fear of me receiving a concussion. Doctor’s fears that because of my abnormal and easy bruising, if I were to receive a concussion it would cause my brain to bleed and I could die. There is only one treatment for my disorder which is frozen plasma. Anytime I acquire a more serious injury I am required to have a frozen plasma transfusion. To date I have only had one transfusion, which occurred in seventh grade after I broke my leg. Another complication with my disorder is that when I receive injuries it takes longer for them to heal than the average person. Such as when I pulled my hamstring it took over a year to heal even with proper treatment. However to this day I still, at times, have trouble with it.

When my doctor first told me of my disorder I felt as if there was nothing to live for anymore. I took it extremely hard and it bothered me for probably a year. Gradually, though, it stopped bothering me and I found other activities to fill the vacancy’s of football and wrestling. I went back to playing soccer, which had been my first love in sports. Also I took up skiing during the winter, which was a totally new sport for me. During these and other activities I do take precautions to help prevent injury, especially head injuries. I now think that this whole ordeal has worked out well and am at peace with knowing the unknown of my disorder. I believe that the most important thing that came from this was that I now never take anything for granted because you never know when it will be your last time.