Since I've recently completed my PhD, recognizing those who helped make it possible is appropriate. Some credit a supportive spouse, others a caring mentor. I have a brain tumor to thank. Let me explain.

The tumor introduced itself during a poker game, blinding and paralyzing me. Suddenly, the lights went out, and I went facedown on the tabletop like a puppet with its strings cut. I thought, "So this is how it happens. I'm having a stroke; I'm dying."

Not the way I pictured the end. And it wasn't--a stroke, or the end. So much for the good news. The bad news, somberly announced in an emergency room: a brain tumor -- bigger than a golf ball.

This particular hospital lacked an MRI, so the surgeons depended on CAT scans and exploratory surgery. That meant, as one explained, opening me up like a Christmas present to see what they'd find.

After six months, six surgeries, spinal meningitis, and several close calls, I emerged from the hospital damaged, shaken, but, much to my surprise, alive. Next came a rehab program and counseling. My attitude? Terrible. My mantra: poor me.

That began to change after a no-nonsense counselor refused to allow me to thumb-suck. He said, "Sympathy's in the dictionary, Bill, between sweat and syphilis." Telling me it was time I saw my glass as half-full instead of half-empty, he "recommended" that I help others with disabilities. Grumbling the whole way, I did. And after I had read for a blind man and worked with children in wheelchairs, I was glad I did. Sucking my thumb proved difficult if I was busy extending that hand to help someone else..

By this time, I had become healthy enough to...to what? My sister summed it up nicely. "Let's see," she said one day as we talked about my future, "you're physically disabled, you've failed out of college, have no marketable skills..." She paused as we both pondered that resume. "I think you'd better register for classes at the junior college. See how you do."

I got in of course -- junior colleges admit anyone with a pulse.

Aside from the fact that I hadn't been in a classroom since the Nixon administration, I had trouble with my vision. Other parts of the printed page would superimpose on the text I tried to read. Until I adjusted it led to some interesting misinterpretations.

I spent the end of that first semester worrying if I'd pass my classes. Grades were posted: 4.0. I thought it was my vision problem; I did a double take so fast I pulled a muscle in my neck. But after the registrar's office assured me the grades were accurate, I was thrilled. In fact, if excitement were people, I would've been China.

Along the way, I've chameleoned into a freelance writer. The first time I saw an article I'd written in a magazine, it felt like I was 14 again and I'd just sighted the girl of my dreams. Writing immediately became the thing I never knew I always wanted. Of course, I've accumulated a stack of rejection letters thicker than a New York City phone book. But as a sage friend observed: "If it were easy, everybody would be a published writer."

One of the immediate benefits of selling something I'd written was simply getting paid. For someone who'd only written for grades, this was a novel experience. And most of the time I get paid to write about something I actually want to write about. That's like giving an 11-year-old boy money to play baseball.

It's been an interesting and rewarding journey. But when I'm congratulated for my accomplishments, such as when another of my articles appears in print, it reminds me that -- for someone whose brain has been fondled more than my mother handled the Sunday meatloaf -- I'd still be tending bar, if it hadn't been for that brain tumor.