It's a good start, Brandon. Add adjectives and link external ideas with which an average reader can personally identify in their own experiences.

Give general ideas that can be streamlined into your personal points with vivid adjectives to take the mundane and make it unique to your story. Nix most of the first-person narrative mentions of yourself as "I" and work toward drawing the reader into the tale.

Here's a quick example: "Alive with Christmas spirit and enthusiastic to include my favorite girl, the objective was to make the crosstown drive and begin the traditional holiday festivities. The list was a leisurely one with visits to family and friends and to include a day of shopping for just the two of us. During the drive to Lisa's house those niggling thoughts of the recent changes in my body cast a dimming pall on my otherwise joyful spirit. As a young man, it was not only frustrating, but frightening to contemplate the unusual weakness and persistent fatigue that threatened to distract me from an enjoyable holiday..."

Try to give the reader a reason to wonder what was happening and want to find out what happened next.

Nice start. As someone said, should have a beginning, a middle and an end. The end leaves me hanging a little.

I can kind of relate to your story. Most of my flares come around Christmas or my birthday or a planned vacation. Have wrecked many a time that I was looking forward to.

~ Faith

You are off to a good start. I did want to know more. However, I think using more analogies and descriptive words would be helpful. When ever I have to write something descriptive, I think of Stephen King. He describes things in ways that bring the point home as well as playing on our primal fears. Of course playing on primal fears is not the purpose of your essay but evoking the emotions of the reader and having them "feel" and "see" and "smell" what you did during that time is important.

I know this is long but, some suggestions . . .

A Christmas I would never forget
By: Brandon Wall

I started out early this Friday morning feeling all the excitement that comes at Christmas time. [Add something here to state that you were getting ready for a drive or something about your plans for that day and the excitement you felt about the plans.] The drive is long but easy. I take I57 to I80 just north of Kankakee and head towards Joliet. I was going there to visit my girlfriend and her parents for the holiday and to bring my girlfriend back with me for the holiday. Our plans were to shop all day Saturday and then on Sunday, Christmas Eve, we were going to wrap presents and go to a large family gathering that night.

I hadn’t been feeling up to par the last few weeks, have some numbness in my hands and being very tired. [Be descriptive in explaining your symptoms. Analogies and descriptive words work great – my hands felt like they were like rubber or on fire or as if they weren’t a part of my body.] Saturday I work up anticipating the big day. However, when I got out of bed, I noticed extreme weakness on my right side. When I tried to talk I couldn’t, I was slurring my words. [Why couldn’t you walk? Did you fall? What did your legs feel like? Again, use descriptive words and analogies – I was slurring my words as if I drank a whole bottle of tequila] I called home and tried to talk to my mother, and she told me to go to the nearest emergency room. I had all the symptoms of a stroke.

[How did you get to the ER? Who took you? Did your girlfriend go? Did family go with you?] The emergency room doctor immediately sent me for a CT scan. It felt like we waited for ever for the doctor to come back in. Finally, the doctor came in and said the CT scan did not come back good. He said it appeared I had suffered many ministrokes, and that I wasn’t allowed to leave. So much for shopping. [How did you feel at this point knowing that it was Christmas time and you had all this stuff going on and couldn’t leave the hospital to be with your family as well as your girlfriend. Try to evoke a feeling here that will suck us in and stir an emotion within us.]

[Maybe put something here about being admitted, how you felt about being admitted, and then describe the night you had next to Mr. Snore and Talk All Night.] I had a really bad night. The guy in the room with me snored and talked all night long.

An MRI of the head was ordered and early that Sunday morning they performed the MRI. [What was it like to have an MRI. Use analogies and descriptive words about the MRI – noises, tunnel, what did it look like inside]

As soon as the results were in, a neurologist named Dr. Kannon, came in and he wanted me to come with him in private to look at the MRI results. He showed me the pictures from the test, and pointed out 14 gray matter spots on my brain. [What did the MRI look like to you? How did you feel looking at a picture of your brain? That is a trip to be looking at a picture of our brain]. He then told me I am not going to go anywhere until we know why they are there.

Well, so much for Christmas Eve. [Maybe add how in a matter of minutes your plans for Christmas changed. Did your family come to be with you? This statement does tell me you were disappointed but how? Allow your emotions to show.]

After the MRI, back to the room I go with the man talking in his sleep. I made friends with one of the nurses. She too a real interest in me and I think felt bad for me having to spend Christmas in the hospital. She went and worked some things around and got me my own private room.

Here it was Christmas morning and I sure got a present I didn’t want. The report said there were three things that this could be.
1) Infection
2) Cancer of the brain
3) Multiple Sclerosis

[Add feeling here as well. You have 3 very unwelcome presents or possible presents. What was going through your mind?]

Now comes my present. [I am assuming this is a lumbar puncture – you might want to add that in here] I get a 23.5 inch long needle put in my lower back. Guess what, it didn’t work. So the doctor tries a 25 inch one, and it went right into my spine. Boy did that hurt! [Use more descriptive words or analogies to describe what it felt like to have this done.] After that I had more testing to be done. Another MRI and a torso scan. Well so much for Christmas day.

My favorite nurse was on duty that Tuesday. She was really “cool” and helped keep my sprit up. That day I got 3 more MRI’s of my entire spine. This took nearly 4 hours and I was nearly insane. As soon as the report was back, my doctor came in and said infection and cancer have been ruled out. This left me with the diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, and a 2006 Christmas I would never forget. I was upset of course. I was 24 years old and a rather bleak future to look forward to. [Maybe sum up, based on your 1st paragraph, that instead of taking that drive down I57 to I80, you took a drive to MS and a world of many unknowns and a life of unpredictability. Also add how you feel about the diagnosis.]

You guys are good editors. Tricia, I think I will have you grade my papers this Fall.

Brandon - We do expect to hear back on your grade. I am hoping for an A for you.