User:Michaelpaytonstewart

Michael Payton Stewart

In the year 1948, I was born Michal Payton Stewart at home in Ewarton, Jamaica, one of seven children by Sybert and Olive Stewart.

Linstead, JA, 7 miles from the small town I was born in, was where I attended elementary and high school. My family was then relocated because of my fathers's job to Brown's Town, only a few miles from where Bob Marley was born. I was sent to boarding school back in Linstead at age 13, where I learned to sew, wash and iron my own clothes, and live away from home. I grew stronger and self sufficient, even picking up hobbies such as photography, playing music, and various sports. Throughout high school, I played football (soccer) in the position of mid-field left wing, and also competed in the country-wide Dacosta Cup. Years later, I learned to play tennis and still love to watch and play the sport today. During this time, I was also in the cadet program: I learned to shoot with rifles, was a bugler, and got other military training for the time I was in high school. Shortly after graduating, I began working as a millwright for Alcan Alumina Plant in Ewarton. While working there, at age 25 I started my own truck hauling business on the side, and had a haul tipper truck for transporting materials such as bauxite for converting to aluminum. Overwhelmed with being a millwright and entrepreneur, I eventually left Alcan with seven years of millwright service. After about five years, my trucking business was proving to be unsuccessful, so I had to shut down operations.

Through these later years as a busy trucker in Jamaica, I had four children, two boys and two girls. The boys lived with me for different periods of time, mostly raised by a nanny and myself in Kingston, Jamaica. I raised the boys while working long days and being constantly on the road, with their mothers not around for the first years of their lives. I later got a new trucking contract on the other side of the island, where I then met my wife Donna in Montego Bay.

In 1980, I migrated to the United States with the sponsorship of one of my older sisters who had moved to the states much earlier. Today, I am also a proud American citizen. Soon after coming to the US, Donna and I got married and settled down in Miami, Florida. My first job working in America was at a hospital in Miami as a maintenance mechanic, and after a few years, was promoted to Assistant Chief Engineer. Based on the great energy savings I had helped the hospital obtain, I was later offered a position as Energy Engineer at a nearby hospital, which soon encouraged me to start my own energy consultation company.

During this time, my wife and I had our first baby together, Duane, being my 5th child. We enjoyed our time with him as the only child in the house, but several years later decided to have a new addition to the family, our baby girl, Nadine. In 1992 Hurricane Andrew swept through Florida, leaving a trail of devastation behind, including our home in Miami. We rebuilt our house, moved on to a larger and newly constructed house, and started a new life with our blessings. My life changed only six months later, as I was called to my son's school by a teacher, and was told that Duane was screaming in great pain. I quickly rushed over to the school, got him into my van, and took him to the local hospital emergency room. The doctors took him in immediately and checked him out with a series of tests. After a long wait, the doctor came in to tell me the bad news. At the very young age of only 8 years old, Duane was diagnosed as having a brain stem tumor. In most cases like these, brain stem tumors are considered inoperable, and there is little hope for the patient to live. Donna and I were devastated by this grave diagnosis, and we spoke to the doctors there about moving him to a children's hospital, were there they would do a biopsy to determine if the tumor was malignant or benign.

The results of this biopsy were non-conclusive, but they determined that our son had only about six months to live. This heartbreaking news was hard to take, especially since he had not shown any symptoms of anything being abnormal. Later on and looking back at a few photographs of his face from before the diagnosis, his smile showed an off center in his face, due to the tumor.

We all prayed that Duane would live a long life, despite the frightening prognosis we were given. In the midst of all of this, one of Donna's clients told her about a surgeon he had read about in Readers Digest, Doctor Fred J. Epstein. We researched and found that he would operate on children with brain stem tumors, and he had shown a great success record in his operations, which gave us much hope. We contacted Dr. Epstein's office in New York City, and they told us he would be in Florida shortly to take a look at Duane to determine the possibility of a operation back in New York. When he examined Duane he said there is hope for a successful operation, and that we should take him to New York in a few weeks!

New York as a whole was fantastic for Duane: the operation went very well and he recovered very quickly, so we were even able go on tours a few days later, to the Empire State Building and other areas. The ABC News program, Primetime, did a segment on Dr. Fred Epstein at the time, including video and interviews of Duane and discussion about his surgery's success. It aired on national television in April of 1993.