My Younger Son

May 10, 2001

Graduation Photo - Aged 17.5 Years, 1999
From being bald at Christmas, his hair is now growing back.
His smile is back. His sarcastic ready wit is back.
He is in remission at this point. Has been since week #1, July 2000.
He is a cuddly teddy-bear. Some woman will be very, very lucky some day.

What I came back from the Romantic Times Convention to Find November 2000

I "saw" this in the airplane - all the way home. His heart rate would respond when I would touch him. It would stabilize. I could read the machines, operate the alarms, and summon help when needed. I stayed there 14 hours - spelled by my older son on occasion so I could drive home, shower and sleep. I slept on chairs and rollaway beds. The PICU needs better support for hysterical parents who don't want to leave their children. There was only one bathroom on the floor. People slept on any chair where ever they found one.

Why I Teach High-Tech.

My younger son, who was given a 2 in 11 chance of living (after he contracted Spinal Meningitis while his counts were down during chemotherapy for ALL Leukemia) and tried to not do so on many occasions, is now home, refusing the hearing aides (the result of the above attack), learning to walk again, and playing DiabloII on his G4 Mac Minitower computer for hours at a time. He watches movies, we get to go to the movies if it is not a crowd and his counts are not down (Mummy Returns is on our list - hope we make it). The yellow bag and white bottle are dinner. He dropped from 245 on entering the hospital, down to 183lbs. He is back to 230.

He gets depressed about his hearing loss and the foot pain never seems to leave him (also a side effect of the drugs). But his sense of humor is back. He has a wry wit and a sarcastic mouth. His hair is growing back. And he remains in remission. So far. So good.

He is the miracle boy. We are waiting for the medical journal papers. At one point, 14 doctors were conferring in his room.

The pink sheets are on a special air-therapy bed. It rolled him gently around (no bed sores). The damn thing can pulverize him. It can vibrate. It can assist in rolling him from side to side. He remained on the bed for weeks. The doctors said it took a Ph.D. to program it - well, I have one and I did. The tube was hooked up to a machine to breathe for him. He was overbreathing - they would paralyze him on occasion to keep him from doing that. The drug-induced coma is to keep the patient from feeling the horrible pain of the swelling in the spinal column and the brain. It took 6 weeks to get him down off the Morphine.