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 shell
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 grass, 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 analyzed 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 butter.
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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