Something Absurdly Personal

Somewhere is a picture of him, taken on that day. He is smiling, that whip-bright white flash that still comes through in the photograph.

Somewhere, inside of him, something is attacking his brain. And neither of us know it.

When my son was 10, he left the golf course complaining of a severe headache. When he spiked with fever and was anguishing in bed, his pediatrician asked my wife a simple question: "Does it hurt when he touches his chin to his chest?"

"Yes"

"Call 911. I will meet you at the hospital"

We didn't call 911, rather, I carried his little-boy frame into the back of the SUV and drove him well above posted speed-limits. We entered the emergency room, filled with the usual complement of little boys and girls. I walked up to the lead nurse and told her bluntly "our pediatrician thinks he has meningitis."

Some parts of a hospital act quicker than others, particularly when certain words are uttered. It appears meningitis is one of those words.

At that point, my son and I were masked men. Gauze coverings as I held him and watched as he pointed out "pain" pictures...unsmiling happy faces are medium...he was pointing at the highest pain indicator.

We were isolated and kept in a separate room. Whenever doctors or nurses came in they were masked as well. They treated him as though he had something horrific. And yet they still were unsure.

So, there was only one way to find out positively.

For the unknowing, the spinal tap is also known as a lumbar puncture. If one saw the needle prior to entry, most would blanch. Most kids would cry. When they prepare a child for the procedure, they have them lay on their side like they are doing a cannon-ball off of a diving board. When they punctured the spinal column, he grimaced. He tightened and squeezed his eyes and his mouth in an indication of the most pain he had ever felt. He didn't say a word. He didn't move a bit.

(At this point I should tell you that the doctor in the procedure was showing off for some intern. She was cute, and he was showing off a bit. Unfortunately, when he did the first puncture, he nicked a wall and when he withdrew the spinal fluid it contain traces of blood. "Damn" he said. "I'll have to do it again." I thought briefly about how he would look with the needle jammed into the fat part of his forehead.)

So another was done, with the same impact on my son.

That night, I slept beside his hospital bed. He was shoved full of IVs. In a small act of blessings, we learned that he had viral meningitis...not as severe as bacterial, but certainly as dangerous and certainly as painful.

He thought the nurse button was "room service." He had jello, stayed up later than he ever had in his life and improved each hour.

Three days later he was released, and he walked out into the sunshine of a morning.

He just thought he was sick. We knew that he was better than lucky. But when he was being perforated by some of the largest needles I'd ever seen, he was the toughest kid I'd ever known.