There’s no sadder place on earth than the pediatric ward at 3 in the morning. There’s also no better place for perspective.
“In fact,” you can say to yourself, “I don’t have any problems.
“I’ve never had problems.
“No one I have ever known has ever had a single problem.”
The rent and the boss and even your six-week-old’s minor surgery pale next to the baby born at a pound-and-a-half who’s never been home and has a bag for a stomach, the 7-month-old with bone cancer, the three-year-old girl getting twelve tumors removed from her spleen, the boy with too-thick glasses whose IV includes: five bags of different colored liquids dripping into his arm, two big helium balloons, a heart monitor, a stuffed King Kong scaling the whole thing — tubes and all — up to the top.
A friend told me that audiologists have done studies and, in fact, the human ear is particularly tuned to the frequencies of a baby’s cry. That we’re 20 or 100 times more sensitive in that vocal range.
And the cries emanating from rooms with signs that read “Neutropenic Precautions,” are unlike any cries you’ve heard anywhere else. They cut through everything you’ve ever thought, heard and felt and mainline straight for your heart. I can’t imagine a knife being any more effective.
When my wife and I went upstairs to hand our baby over for what, it turns out, is an extremely minor procedure, the anesthesiologist treated us with deference. He answered all our questions. He took our baby from us with all the care and love of a parent handling her own child.
My wife and I wept. We did not know what would happen next.
Family members, meanwhile, were waiting with other parents and family members. They were talking. Every now and then a doctor would come down and address a group of people. They would break the good news right in front of everyone. Or, they would ask them to please come and talk in a room right over there.
Here, everyone knows what happens behind closed doors. We feel bad for those being led away and hope that when our time comes there will be no secrets. That everything will be said in public.
The conversations among parents all start the same way, with the same compassionate tones, the same caring questions.
“What are you in for?”
“Our son is having a small surgery. He has a growth on this eyelid that is occluding his vision. If it continues to grow it could prevent the development of the optic nerve and cause him to never fully develop his sight in that eye. But more than that, because he’s so young, he’s still learning how to process images — what to do with the raw data his eyeballs deliver to his brain. It’s a simple procedure but because he’s just six-weeks-old, the anesthesia brings with it considerable risk. I think we’re going to have to stay overnight to make sure everything is okay.”
“Wow,” she says. And she means it.
“What are you here for?”
“My daughter has cancer. She needs a new liver. They have one here now, but, whenever there’s a transplant they always bring in two potential patients to screen. You never know if you’re number one or number two in line. I hope she’s number one. I don’t know how long she can go without a liver.”
“Wow,” I say. And I really, really mean it.
Our procedure was a success!
After half-an-hour in the waiting room, the doctor came down and spoke to us where we sat. Our son woke up hungry and we fed him. He experienced none of the side-effects or complications the anesthesiologist told us to watch out for. Today, he is opening his eye wider than he ever has.
A few days later, my wife was scanning the internet looking for used toys to buy. A present to give him for surviving such a traumatic episode.
Then, on Craigslist, she ran into this:
My friend Jennifer and her husband Doug have (this Wednesday 11/19) to find a liver for their nine month old baby. She was diagnosed with leukemia several months ago, and after intensive chemo had a liver transplant last Friday, which didn’t take.
Ella is only 15 lbs so they need the left lobe from someone under 130 lbs with O blood type. No one in their family fits that category, so we’re sending a plea out to friends and family to see if anyone can help. Its a huge favor to ask of someone, but considering the circumstances, it’s absolutely necessary to ask everyone we know, otherwise Ella will die.
If you know of anyone who could and would be a likely candidate to help save Ella’s life, please contact Jennifer IMMEDIATELY at jennifer@xxx.org. She is by her computer and hoping and praying to have Ella’s guardian angel contact her in time. Please only contact her if you have a strong potential lead, as time is of the essence.
One person’s tears cannot begin to express the sadness that lives in the world. The water that drains from the clouds, that flows into rivers and lakes and eventually pours from our eyes, it has no knowledge of things like cancer or livers or pediatric wards. And it is said that a good cry can heal something or someone, or that it lets the hurt out, or that it somehow can make you feel better when nothing else can, but I’m not sure, right now, that I believe that.
But the children on the pediatric ward haven’t known anything but what they’ve known. So they wake up in good spirits.
The little girl with the bag is twelve pounds now and even with the tubes coming out of her, she smiles and laughs at passing strangers. The boy with the King Kong IV pushes it down the hallway to the security station and plays checkers with the guard there. The two-year-old who wandered into our room was curious and full of mischief, while his mother was all worry and complaints that her husband — the boy’s father — hadn’t even called.
Worry, fear and sadness, it seems, is the providence of adults. Children, meanwhile, own laughter, smiles, eternal optimism and hope.
And even morning comes to the wards of broken hearts, when big windows at the end of the hall let in all the light in the world. Sometimes, babies get to go home. Sometimes, even livers are found in unexpected places. Sometimes, children grow up and never remember the doctors and nurses who made them whole.
