Free My Next Step by Dave Liniger Page A

longer afraid of that cow. I beat her like a drum, whacking away until she finally moved.
    That moment stayed with me the rest of my life and frankly helped put fear in its proper perspective. Many years later, I was in a foxhole with some buddies in Vietnam when I began laughing for no reason at all.
    “What’s so funny?” someone asked.
    “I ain’t afraid of that cow, I’ll tell you that.” They didn’t know what I meant, but I sure did.
    I’ve thought about that day at my father’s farm many times over the past sixty years, and here I was, lying in my hospital bed staring down the cow yet again.
    Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ ”
    There have been many terrible times throughout the course of my life. I was not an overnight success. I worked very hard and made a lot of mistakes that I’ve had to pay for along the way. There have been so many make-or-break moments in our company’s history when I’ve stood back and wondered if I’d thrown away twenty years of my life—times when I risked losing it all because of those mistakes. When you look at anyone in life whose actions appear heroic, you must realize that they actually got to that plateau step by step and more often than not, by taking very small steps. Through all the life events I’ve experienced—whether it was being in combat, building my business or suffering extraordinary financial difficulties during downward markets—I somehow perservered. I managed to live through each challenge, overcome it and ultimately learn that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger . In reality, those life experiences gave me the fortitude, the toughness, to face the hardest battle of my life—which was first and foremost to survive and then to learn to walk again, one step at a time.

CHAPTER 6
    Baby Steps
    A gainst all odds, my first surgery was a success. My blood sugar, blood pressure, heart rate and breathing were starting to progress well, and I was able to respond to touch and recognize voices. When I awoke, I felt no pain in my upper or lower back. Although it was a temporary reprieve, it was a much needed one.
    Miraculously, the doctors were able to locate and drain the fluid buildup along my lower spinal column as planned. They rid me of as much of the staphylococcus bacteria as they could, but the test results indicated that the fluid they removed did not have as much of the infection in it as they expected. The next seventy-two hours would provide the doctors with enough information to help them decide what to do next.
    Within a day or two of surgery, my ever-present fever had dissipated, which was a very good sign that the infection was losing ground. I began to stabilize for the first time in a month. One of the best moments for me was finding out that my ventilator tube would finally be removed. I was deliriously happy when I heard that news. The thought of being able to completely close my mouth was heavenly. I knew it would be uncomfortable for the next few days as I got used to breathing on my own again, but that was ok. I even looked forward to coughing up my own phlegm because that would be another small step toward my recovery. We all recognized that the process would be slow. In fact, someone in the group dubbed it my “Baby Steps” toward healing and recovery.
    When I first awoke from my coma, I had the mind of a child. I’m told my cognitive reasoning was that of a four year old. (Well, that might have been true before my coma too, but only after a few drinks!)
    I know I must have been really out of it because I’m not at all a touchy-feely kind of guy, but when I opened my eyes and my daughter, who was standing next to me, asked to hold my hand, I said, “Yes!” Of course, I also asked about Gail and how she