Scope 2006 - SIU School of Medicine

Instinct
10
Kourtney Bradford
MSIII
Tuesday
I still remember that Tuesday, that feeling. My 4 year-old son, tethered tightly
into the metal cart, and I were slowly traversing the shiny, tiled, wide aisles as I filled the
cart with the week’s menu items. Doritos. Cool Ranch. My waistline and brain were
in the middle of a heated debate over the chips’ fate when Jack’s high-pitched version of
“Yankee Doodle Dandy” faded out. I focused, not so much on the bag, but on the fact
that it was Tuesday. Not just any Tuesday, but the Tuesday that follows the dreadfully
punctual monthly Monday that had spent the last 11 years of my life, save a precious 12
months thanks to my first child, making me desperately want to phone God to discuss
why he hated women so much. It’s a strange feeling, instinct.
As I snatched the blue bag from the shelf and tossed it into the cart with one
hand, my other was already busy rifling through the eight pounds of necessities in my
oversized purse in search of my day planner. Although the box springs would vehemently
argue, we really weren’t trying to get pregnant again. A frightening calm settled
as I moved past the toiletry aisle and made my way to the checkout, phone numbers in
hand. There was no point in procuring a pregnancy test when I already knew that I
was pregnant, as if by holding the doctor’s number in my hand was enough to confirm
it. That was the beginning of my relationship with John.
The tub
An energetic young voice, followed by quick and increasingly louder footsteps
echoed into the second floor bathroom. “Mom…mom, where are you?” From my teetering
position, one foot in the metal soap alcove of the wall and the other desperately
clinging to the lima bean green porcelain of the tub edge, I announced my location and
returned to my merciless attack on the last colony of rebellious soap scum trying to
stake its claim on my shower tile. The small hand grabbed my calf and I was reminded
that I was not ready to pass on because when my life flashed before me, it left me somewhat
wanting. I carefully stepped down from my perch and tried to act as if I hadn’t
just had a brush with death as I settled onto the tub wall, eye-to-eye with my 3-year-old
son John. “Life is hope, Mom…life is hope.” I’d have thought that I would have
broken my neck the way my focus shifted from the half-attached Barney Band-Aid on
his skinny left knee to his innocent, yet sure brown eyes. “Okay,” I responded, a
pleasant reminder that just because we are older does not mean that we are any wiser.
“That’s all,” he shrugged as he slipped back out the white, wooden doorway and
snatched away my chance for a mother-son deeply intimate conversation. My jaw
fought to avoid the floor as my mind raced back to my college Intro to Philosophy class
SCOPE 2006
and decided that he might have proven useful back then. I pondered my little Dali
Lama as I resumed my post, oblivious to how important those three words would be.
My family
I sat in the third row of red, velvety cushioned seats of the high school auditorium
that night, since the first two rows are just too close, with my husband and other
two sons as I watched 16 year-old John conversing on the elaborately designed stage.
Mesmerizing. We were a musical family and had all been in one production or another,
displaying our lucky genes, but even fending off a bit of a cold, he commanded attention
and made you forget where you were the way a 25 foot away hallway glimpse of
your high school crush could freeze everyone else and allow you to follow every wisp of
silky brown hair on his head settle into place as he stopped at his locker three feet from
you... and then you realized you weren’t breathing. The thunderous applause was no
match for my galloping heart as I stood to cheer, so full of pride and love for my son
that I was sure I would explode. Man. I glanced at my family next to me and back to
John, graciously beaming as he bowed, and knew that I had truly been blessed
With the play finishing tonight and John’s hectic schedule easing up, we were
finally able to convince him to get to the doctor to take care of this achy, exhausting
cold he’d been trying to knock. Instinct. Left me out to dry on that one.
The bed
Lifting my head off my hands and not bothering to wonder, or care, whether
it was tears or slobber matting my two-day-old hair to the corner of my mouth, my
glazed eyes begin to focus on the blinking green light a foot from John’s head. I sat up
straight in my chair-turned-bed of the last three years and ignored the protests of my
lower back. His heart is still beating. He is still alive. There is still hope. He’d gotten
sick so quickly. In and out of hospital after hospital, seeing doctor after doctor and getting
medication then surgery then medication then surgery. Not once did he lose hope.
Now he lies in this aluminum bed, in this cold room, hooked up to seemingly
endless cords and machines. It is almost over. Earlier this week, things had gotten hairy.
While my husband and I, with our newfound medical knowledge courtesy of a three
year medical crash course in trying to divide and conquer my son’s assailant, were
weighing the options of different treatment alterations to try next, he said it. “I’m
ready.” In unimaginable pain and confined to a bed where each position hurt worse
than the next, he was still able to floor me with his succinct wisdom. As a mother about
to lose her child to disease and wanting to spare him as much pain as possible, I agreed.
He’d been so valiant, and vicariously through him, I’d never allowed myself to give up
SCOPE 2006 11