Life As We Know It

On Thursday, our 5 year old daughter discovered she had the courage to undergo a CT Scan without anaesthesia.

We woke early that morning so she could eat breakfast before the "no food" cut-off time. Later we headed to Childrens Hospital. After a strange little Abbott and Costello routine of winding the corridors with the nurse/tech trying to find Frank (my husband) who was trying to find us, we settled into a room -- all of us. We answered questions. We answered more questions. We asked questions. And our daughter drank the contrast liquid. The head nurse came in and questioned us again. They felt Little Bear could handle the Scan without sedation. We agreed, but our daughter had the final say. She decided to try it, and we were sent off to play in their play area.

If you have to be a sick child, and hopefully you do not, Childrens is a pretty cool place. They have an outdoor play area, including a lowered basketball hoop, walking trails, and many imagination play structures (for lack of a better word). I lost "HORSE" again, but only by one letter. This may be more to Frank's nerves than my improvement. And in any case is painfully pitiful on both our parts considering the height of the goal. Childrens also has an indoor play area, including a library of books, art tables, an air hockey game, and so on. Both areas were filled with enticing activities. We even ran into an older girl from our daughter's school. Considering the size of Seattle, this seemed more than a coincidence. That girl was at Childrens for her little brother. The two girls played air hockey together and bonded in school spirit.

When it came time for the test, Frank read us a children's book while the nurse put the IV straw into our little girl's hand. I held her, careful not to squeeze her back into my womb. She jumped at the initial Pffflllt and painful pop of the injector, but allowed the nurse to insert the rest of the mechanism without any struggle. She stared at the hand as if it had suddenly and spontaneously emerged from the end of her arm. It now sported a tube with a dangle on the end like a built-in cat toy.

There's an experience of maternal care that feels primal and predatory. You hear your own wolf's howl inside your head and feel the need to pace in front of the den to fend off whatever lurks in the darkness. The howl woke me that morning. It rose again in my throat when they inserted the IV line into my child. I bit it back with 2 inch fangs and pressed my lips together. I did not bite the technician.

We walked to "The Doughnut" as a family, as a pack. The tech showed us what the machine did: up - down - in - out. We told our daughter it goes up and down like the dentist's chair (which she enjoys) or Miss Kay's chair (our hairdresser - whom she adores). She didn't seem as fearful but still balked at getting on the table. She didn't want to disappoint, but she was scared, and said so. So Frank hopped up on it, and the tech put him in the machine and told us what the machine would do. She popped him back out and asked our girl what kind of filling she liked in her doughnuts. She couldn't think of one, so I suggested Lemon, and asked her if she wanted to be the lemon filling in the doughnut. She lit up. She hopped up on the table and said she was going to be the lemon filling in the doughnut.

She had the tell-tale tautness of worry in her face and the accusing look of faith in her eyes as she looked to us for reassurance. She had accepted her fate and called up the reserve of invincibility that dwells in the young.

Another experience of maternal care: breathlessness. When your child displays raw courage, faith, grace, humor in the face of fear... your heartbeat thrums in the silence of your lungs' collapse.

They sent me into the hall to watch from a window (to protect my body from radiation in case I were pregnant.) Frank donned the lead jacket and stayed by her side. Radiation. They were going to irradiate my child. We were all protected from it, and she was going to take it into her body. She and she alone. She had to do this herself. Tie my hands, lash on a boulder, and toss me into the river. She had done it all herself. We were there, but the strength to complete this task had to come from her.

Paul McCartney's song "My Brave Face" rang in my head. She was the brave face. I stood apart, watching, not hearing, my waning eyesight eagle sharp, my cross pendant in my fingers, prayers and songs on my lips.

Recently, I read a study about how the old teaching technique of memorization added nothing to the brain's functioning. Maybe so. But it adds immensely to your whole functioning. Having been immersed in scripture like Holy Water as a child, verses always come back to me in times of need, great or small. They wash me in comfort. Psalm 23. Psalm 56:3. John 10. Matthew 6:25-34. Pslam 139.

The tech injected the medicine that would make our daughter hot ("like the sun," she said). The tech pushed the button that sent her in and out of the machine, her hands over her head, her breath held, her body still. And then it was over. We went to lunch. We ate like ravenous wolves.

That night we slept.

Friday morning, I called our doctor for the results. The person who answered said she hadn't seen anything come in on the fax, but that they'd call when the results came in. It was 10 a.m. I asked her to please call Childrens and get the results, as we had waited and worried for two weeks and needed to know. "Oh," she said. "Okay." There are times when you have to advocate clearly because sometimes folks don't understand what you need. "We'll call when it comes in" isn't sufficient when you've hung in limbo with your child's life a question.

An hour later, the doctor called with the news: our daughter's belly was normal. The test showed no pathology.

I wanted the doctor to repeat the words over and over, as if that would engrave the message in stone or write it in permanent marker.

Writing this now my breath still catches. Do I continue to hold it? How long will I?

We drove to Frank's work and took him to lunch. We had hamburgers, possibly the modern day equivalent of animal sacrifice, the fatted calf. Our little girl was alive and well. Gratitude isn't enough.

We prayed for those families who would not receive the happy news we did, for the children we saw strapped to IV poles at the hospital, for the families parking in the Whale parking lot and following the inset fish along the floor to Check-In and then to the Glass Octopus of Radiology Reception and beyond. All the paint, glass, bright colors, toys, fish tanks, and tile in the world can't make that trek any shorter, and they surely can't make the return trek any easier when the news is not as joyous as ours. But I am grateful for the staff of Childrens, for a facility made with the sole care of children's needs in mind, for the kindness, gentleness, thoughtfulness, and sweetness we encountered along the way. There can be no way to make the serious sickness of a child easier for a parent, but they do their best to build a soft cocoon in which to take the blows. Thank you, Childrens. And thank you, dear God, for holding us every moment, for never letting us go.