Have a box of Kleenex handy if you read this young mans obituary

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http://www.suntimes.com/news/obituaries/9209084-418/q-a-young-man-who-beat-odds-savored-life.html

‘Q,’ a young man who beat odds, savored life

By Maureen O’Donnell Staff Reporter [email protected] December 2, 2011 7:18PM

Quantell Wood’s challenges began in utero.

Because his birth mother abused drugs and alcohol, he was intellectually challenged, and he had cerebral palsy and hearing and vision problems and auto-immune deficiencies. He was born three months early and spent the first 16 months of his life — alone — in a neonatal intensive care unit. Later he endured countless hospitalizations — one lasting 45 days. He had to have a liver transplant. An infection meant the amputation of the upper joints on his right hand. When he was strong enough to walk, around age 4, it was with a rolling, side-to-side gait.

And yet.

He lived to be 21, long enough for him to get excited about ordering a beer on his birthday. He couldn’t really drink it — he was fed through a tube in his stomach, and the liver transplant meant he shouldn’t have alcohol. But he lifted it to his lips just to taste it.

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