“I dropped the toilet seat on my knee.”
“What did you say?”
“Well, I was letting the toilet seat down,” Patrick, my 21 year old son, says, giggling and rubbing his plaid flannel pajama-clad leg, “and I dropped it on my knee!”
Flashback to 1990. Patrick is 4 years old, tow-headed, precocious and articulate. We celebrate Thanksgiving in Northgate, surrounded by moving crates.
A week later we arrive in Dash Point, dragging furniture, boxes of toys and laundry baskets full of clothes.
Unpacking his plastic Smithsonian dinosaurs, he names each one before placing them on his bedroom windowsill.
“Pachycephylosaurus, Struthiomimus, Parasaurolophus, Tyrannosaurus Rex.” Patrick's eyes are crossed again. His head aches. He's tired from the move.
Three days after we get the last box into the house, we enjoy our first big Sunday dinner. Increasingly lethargic, Patrick chooses to stay on the couch rather than return to the dining room for carrot cake. Heading for bed, he walks across the living room toward the stairs, missing his mark by three feet.
Something is wrong.
We know Patrick is having some difficulties. Months before, his pediatrician referred us to an optometrist, who asserted “nothing's wrong.” The ear, nose and throat doctor claimed Patrick was fine. Next stop is the neurologist, but with four kids under the age of six, the move consumes all our time and energy, and we don't even have a doctor in Tacoma yet.
I call the after-hours nurse and attempt to bring her up to speed.
“Well, you could come the E.R., and we could start at the beginning, not knowing your son, and try to figure all this out,” she counsels. “Or you could take him to his pediatrician in the morning.”
Have you ever gone to bed one night with a vague idea that in the morning your life would never be the same again?
The following day a CT scan reveals a medulloblastoma, a malignant tumor the size of a racquetball, crowding his posterior lobe, working its way into his brain stem. We farm out the kids, make shifts at the hospital, and decide how to live in the present.
When a local church mothers' group learns of our plight, we welcome a barrage of strangers bearing casseroles. We become known in the neighborhood as “the family that moved in whom no one has ever seen.” We learn medical terms, too numerous to count. We become friends with the nurses during the days before Patrick’s surgery, while he's on steroids to bring down the swelling.
On Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Day, we place Patrick's life into the hands of God and the pediatric neurosurgeons. Afterward, we watch him struggle in the intensive care unit, tied down and on life support. People we've never met ask if they can pray with and for us. And we begin to meet other families touched by childhood cancer.
In the years since, Patrick has endured radiation, chemotherapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, learning therapy and nearly every sort of medical test. We credit years of intensive growth hormone therapy for his permanent height of 5'2”. He'll need thyroid medication for the rest of his life.
I think the poking, prodding and analyzing has toughened his formerly blithe spirit. Smeagol/Gollum in The Lord of the Rings occasionally takes over as Patrick's alter-ego. And yes, he is cured.
Camp Goodtimes, the American Cancer Society's summer camp for childhood cancer survivors, is Patrick's favorite place of all time. His former caseworker at Fife High School – he finally graduated last year, to thunderous applause -- helped Patrick get a great job, so he can buy his own video games and Weird Al music.
He's proud of his 102-and climbing pin average at the Wednesday Bowling League with Metro Parks' specialized recreation program.
As Thanksgiving approaches, I'm reminded that a steady stream of wonderful, caring people shows up in our lives on a regular basis. Had it not been for the brain tumor, we'd have never met them.
So having a 21-year-old who can somehow manage to drop a toilet seat on his knee and laugh about it is remarkable. I regard it as one of life's miracles. But I still can't imagine how he did it.
Julia Miller of Edgewood is one of six reader columnists for the Perspectives page. (This post is a reprinted column, originally published November 18, 2007, in The Tacoma News Tribune)
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