Denis Knezovic
Aschau
The time in the hospital, which turned out to last over three months, was extremely difficult. I was eight years old and had never been away from my parents for an extended period of time. There were several factors that made life there nearly intolerable, but that was likely worse for me at than anything else. The hospital was well over an hour’s drive from where we lived, making it impossible for family members to be with me all the time. It was in fact so bad that my mother soon rented a nearby hotel room, in order to spend most of the visiting hours with me. That only partially solved the problem, however. Everything was so different from what I was used to. Leaving my familiar environment had a negative effect on me throughout my childhood.
The hospital had a modern, but dull look to it. Most of the walls were just white and lacking color. The only other detail I remember about it is that boys and girls were stationed in separate buildings and ours was said to be gloomier than that of the girls.
I arrived at the hospital in late May of 1994. The school year in Bavaria goes from September until July and thankfully the hospital had a school, where teachers worked individually with students, based on lesson plans sent to them by the latter’s original schools. That enabled me to finish the first grade there, without needing to be held back. Therefore, despite the education system’s above-mentioned flaws with regards to opportunities for disabled students, the hospital’s schooling method worked for me for those few months at least--though needless to say, the teachers back home were far better than the ones in Aschau. I was sometimes unable to cope with the methods of learning in the hospital, because they were different from the methods I was used to. The teachers just told me to put up with their way of doing things, because I would not be returning to my regular school until September. I do not recall any specifics about that, just that the differences were subtle and probably bothered me only because of the tense situation I was in.
A week or so after I arrived at the hospital, my surgery took place. I lost more blood than was normal; therefore another precautionary procedure was needed. That meant that apart from the physical pain and the limited movement due to the plaster around my legs, I also could not eat or drink for an extra day. I received nutrients only in the form of IV intravenous fluid. The situation was so bad that the other patients in the room and their families were asked to eat and drink elsewhere.
Rehabilitation was slow, but at the same time intense. I had to do physical and occupational therapy, about which I remember only that it was unpleasant and that I did not always cooperate. I was happy after having been sent home to rest for a week or two, not long after the surgery. Soon after I returned to the hospital, the plaster came off, and therapy as well as the schooling there continued. I received my first leg braces soon and was able to walk with a walker as well. For the first time nobody had to hold on to me while I was trying to walk, unlike at Peto years prior. It was also the first time since then that I stood on my own two feet.
Meanwhile, the World Cup had started in the United States. It was the first one that I could remember. I watched highlights of the opening game between the defending champions, Germany and first-time qualifiers Bolivia. I also remember having watched parts of another game or two before the quarterfinal between Germany and Bulgaria. It was the only match of the tournament that I watched in its entirety. It took place on a weekend and I remember being alone the room with both of my parents. (My paternal grandmother came to visit us for the first of many times that summer and she must have been babysitting my brother then.) In spite of all of our cheering for the Germans, Bulgaria came out on top 2-1. Their star player of those days, Christo Stoichkov, currently lives in the US and works for the Spanish-language television network Univision Deportes, since he used to play for Barcelona and speaks the language fluently. I was quite upset about being unable to watch much of the rest of the tournament, partly due to the time difference, but mostly because the other kids in the room preferred cartoons. I did not see the amazing trickery and athleticism of Romario, Bebeto, and company that put Brazil apart from the rest of the teams, and I also saw Roberto Baggio’s penalty-shootout miss, which gave them the title in the final against Italy only years later.
Besides the World Cup, we had a big sporting event of our own at the hospital. It was a sports festival where we participated in various different specialized disciplines. Two that I can remember were long-distance throwing of a ball, and some kind of adjusted bowling, though there must have been several more. In any case, I came in fourth place in my age group overall, therefore just missing out on a medal. One of my roommates won the gold and he proudly wore it around his neck everywhere he went in the following days.
I learned to walk with a walker and to ride a specialized tricycle during my last weeks in Aschau. Both of those skills proved to be vital in the coming years. Nonetheless, one of the happiest moments in my life was when the doctors came to my room one evening and told me that I would be free to go home at the end of the week. This was after more than three long months there. Three months of being away from my home and my family, of having to get accustomed to a new daily routine, of having to put up with strict nuns (who ran many day-to-day things in the hospital) and of missing much of the world’s greatest sporting event. On top of all of that, I had also developed an allergy to the material of the bedclothes, which was diagnosed only after weeks of endless coughing. Nevertheless, it was the start to a new life with much more independence for me, which would not have been possible without the surgery. I therefore look back at the time in the hospital much more positively now.