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Chapter 3

Todd's Illness

"Pain or no pain, I did not wish to go through life with my eyes closed to hardship, for only pure ignorance was bliss."

CHAPTER THREE

Todd's Illness

An individual often lives many years before his memories include any aspects of life other than those which have directly affected his own.

My awareness of others improved remarkably in grade school, although it had not reached an acceptable level. I remembered the hurts and injustices of those around me, yet the memories of my pain still over-shadowed and dominated those which I viewed in other lives.

Within the home, I knew very little of the harshness of life. No serious injury had befallen me either physically or emotionally and I had every reason to be happy. It seemed that a protective sh.e.l.l surrounded my world, through which no discontentment could pierce.

I missed Todd when he left home to attend the university; phone calls bridged the miles to a certain extent, but within these I sensed a melancholic note which bespoke loneliness and homesickness and involuntary tears would cascade down my cheeks as I hung up the phone.

Letters, however, had a way of concealing emotion better than conversation, and the proclamation "I'm fine" was easier to believe in the written form. It was obvious to me that Todd's cheerful remarks were sometimes the work of mechanical, socially expected responses, but I had no idea that they had eventually grown into outright lies with regard to his health.

A visit to the university clinic provided sufficient evidence to support the fact that Todd was a very ill student and he was told to return home for more adequate testing in a hospital situation. Relying on valium to ease and relax his malfunctioning system, he took a bus from the university, insisting to Mom and Dad that he would be all right. During the several hours which spanned his two bus connections, he stretched out in a vacant lot to rest, as the terminal itself frowned on "loiterers" and therefore had no benches of adequate proportions for Todd's needs. When Mom was told the above incident, she immediately envisioned tall gra.s.s, dandelion heads and broken whiskey bottles, which might not have been far from the mark, and exclaimed "But you could've been arrested...or...mugged!" Todd, indeed, had true grit.

After approximately three weeks in the hospital, Todd's health returned. A hypothesis was drawn in which nephritis, a kidney ailment, and rheumatic fever were determined as the culprits behind his problem, and drugs were administered which appeared to relieve his symptoms.

During this time, Mom was taking final exams and Norm was graduating from high school, which altogether spelled chaos for the family. At eight, however, I did not gather the magnitude of worry which encircled Todd since I was rather unexposed to his sickness. I was too young to visit him at the hospital and life, for me, went on fairly well.

That winter the doctor decided to take Todd off the steroid. If his kidney could function normally, it would be better to avoid extensive use of the drug. Once he returned to school, it soon became evident that his health, again, was on the decline. My parents picked him up at the university, and he came home so weak that he rested on the main floor instead of in his usual upstairs room. The doctor was alerted concerning his condition, but a decision was made for Todd to remain at home through the weekend. However, Todd's state grew increasingly worse, and the doctor was phoned in desperation whereupon he immediately made plans for Todd to journey to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. The drive lasted an exhausting eight hours, but it saved Todd's life.

In a matter of several hours, the test results had been a.n.a.lyzed and a name was given to Todd's symptoms which could widen the most apathetic eyes: Wegener's Granulomatosis. Simply stated, Todd's disease was one in which his own immune system radically over-reacted and actually became allergic to, and would have killed, himself. Due to acute kidney failure, his body had neared its saturation point regarding its tolerance of impurities, beyond which no endurance could have impeded death. If not for prednisone and Imuran his survival would have been impossible.

As near as he came to death, I remembered nothing of his stay at the public hospital or the weekend during which his life slowly dwindled before our eyes. Perhaps it was a lack of awareness on my part combined with a degree of exclusion, due to my young age, from the facts and seriousness of the affair that I suffered from such a dearth of recollection; at any rate, my consciousness was jarred into reality only after Todd had reached Mayo Clinic and a noon-hour phone call from Dad to my mom caused me to comprehend the grave plight in which my brother was stranded. As Mom hung up the phone, I gasped, "Todd's not going to die, is he?" This, finally, was reality; among the dish of peaches, carton of milk and loaf of bread that decorated the kitchen table, it stuck in my throat like peanut b.u.t.ter.

I never forgot that lunch, nor the ignorant bliss which departed when reality caught up with me. A selfish person suffers insignificant wounds, for his shallow love is generated only toward himself; however, when one is able to extend his love and concern beyond himself, the pain is much deeper. I learned that the world did not revolve around me; I controlled nothing. Just as I had been virtually oblivious to my brother's failing health, so was the world oblivious to me. Life became larger than it had been as my eyes gradually opened, widening the scope through which I gained my image of existence. Pain or no pain, I did not wish to go through life with my eyes closed to hardship, for only pure ignorance was bliss. It seemed that change was the only certainty in life. If I could instill that thought in my mind, growing up would prove to be less of a battle.

Todd recovered slowly and after regaining his strength returned to the university at the beginning of the next semester. Complications caused by ill health no longer wreaked havoc upon his plans, and under the protective wing of medication he successfully completed his education without further set-backs.

The following summer, Todd traveled to Mayo Clinic once again for restorative surgery on his nose. His illness caused the cartilage to dissolve completely, making a noticeable recess. The surgery was the last of the weightier consequences of Todd's disease though, it too, possessed few endearing qualities.

Todd would never be free of the drugs, for they alone allowed him to survive. It did not appear that my brother's life would ever again be "normal," but that, I later found, depended on one's definition of the word.

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Chapter 4

Fifth Grade

"To maintain a friendship, one must have unrelenting endurance, yet should never need the companionship of another so desperately as to justify the acceptance of a flagrantly inconsistent personality."

CHAPTER FOUR

Fifth Grade

During the latter half of fifth grade, I decided to keep a diary.

Entries were, at best, spa.r.s.e and infrequent throughout the school year. Upon the arrival of summer, they subsided altogether. While the entries persisted, however, the content consisted merely of the days events, ama.s.sed in broken sentences and one word implications. I also made certain that major events did not pa.s.s without notice.

Jan. 19, 1973... Gerbil's tail fell off today. He was going out on the carpet and so I grabbed onto his tail. Guess what? This much (one inch) of his tail fell off. It's in a bag.

Yes, I even saved the tail.

Jan. 20, 1973... Made a bet with Dad about snow. Church, Rainy, wet day outside. Popcorn at night. 2 bottles of pop. Got the hiccups.

Played with gerbil.

I was painfully concise.

Mar. 13, 1973... I stayed home and am sick. I barfed in the sink and then watched T.V.