JOE ALBEE AND DOG, SPECK/Staff photo by Travis Barrett

Why is it that I walk away feeling like I'm the one who needs the medicine, like I'm the one who needs to find a way to make myself feel better?

A few hours with Joe Albee will do that to a person.

Albee, 21, lives in Vassalboro. He's bound to a wheelchair -- having endured 22 surgeries in his life to try and alleviate the stress on his body from spina bifida. The disease, resulting from an incomplete closure of the spine, is as debilitating as they come.

Just don't tell Joe.

He's too busy fishing, 4-wheeling and racing down ski slopes to care. And too busy to tell people that things can't be done.

He does more most winters than I could ever dream of. Simply put, I learned one giant lesson from Joe this week. Don't take it for granted.

Don't ever take it for granted.

Read about an extraordinary person in today's Kennebec Journal.