Just before birdshot obliterated his spine and embedded in a lung, nine-year-old Lloyd didn't hear the crack of the shotgun.
Thrust from behind, his body lunged while he repeated the prayer, "I don't want to die." Bleeding on the floor, he passed out for the first time. Paralyzed and already having endured hospital after hospital, fifteen-year-old Lloyd is relegated to The Crippled Children's Hospital in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. A kind of Hotel California, it's an institution where most were held hostage at least two years. Diminutive and weak from lack of treatment, but certainly not for lack of abuse, Lloyd is uniquely prepared for this world of bullies- not the staff, but other young disabled patients, left unpoliced, who would make "Lord of the Flies" look like an island paradise. Separated from his family and all he's ever known, Lloyd must endure surgery after surgery and survive in an environment woefully devoid of quality hygienics, and where deadly infections reigned supreme. Most painful of all, he feels empathy for his fellow frail patients who endure the brunt of the bullies' treatment. Can Lloyd claw his way up the hierarchy of a hardened Boys Ward to protect the weakest among them? Can he even protect himself? Set in 1965, his personal story is told humorously, and gives a peek into a flawed medical system and those on both sides of the hospital beds, just trying to survive. Lloyd's true tale provides hope and inspiration for a life beyond the bed, one which is not bound by society's limiting beliefs, and is a tribute to all who suffer physical and mental anguish.
