Rejoice in the Lord Always

4

The LORD will keep you from all harm—
he will watch over your life. Psalm 121:7

As the evening progressed, and I failed to get any better, Mom lost confidence in the doctor’s unofficial diagnosis. On top of the problems already haunting me, my right side began to ache.
“What do you think is going on?” Dad asked my mother.
She frowned and replied that she really had no idea. Together they decided taking me to the emergency room seemed the wisest course of action.
My parents loaded me into the station wagon and we set out for Middle Tennessee Medical Center in Murfreesboro. After a ten-minute drive we arrived and were finally ushered into a room; there the doctor diagnosed me with an upper respiratory infection and prescribed me a shot of Seconal. This particular drug is similar to a tranquilizer and is absorbed by the liver. The doctor explained his expectation that it would get me on the road to recovery.
A nurse arrived and stuck a long syringe into the bottle of medication.
“Now,” she said matter-of-factly, probably trying to distract me from the embarrassing thing she was about to suggest, “ease down your pants.”
She wants to shoot that needle into my backside? I thought frantically. The very idea caused my breathing to speed up and the pulse in my neck to pound. I hated needles, and I was horrified by her suggestion. In spite of the fact I knew I needed some kind of medical intervention, in that moment I wanted nothing more than to run out of the room to get away from the nurse’s instrument of torture.
Probably reading the look of panic on my face, my parents shifted so they were standing in front of the only escape route: the door leading to the hall. So finally, feeling too sick to fight and with a great deal of reluctance, I unbuckled my belt and let my jeans slide down to my knees.
“Now, this will sting a little bit,” the nurse warned.
I knew better. It would sting like I had sat on an angry yellow jacket.
Dad and Mom moved closer, effectively holding me in place while the nurse approached. I tensed, knowing the tip of that syringe neared its goal. But remarkably, the plunger on the syringe broke just as the nurse drew close enough to administer the medication. A bit got under my skin, but most of the Seconal squirted all over me and onto Dad’s pants. None of it made it into the deeper tissue of my body.
The nurse shook her head and let out a sigh. “This never happens!” she said.
I watched her reach for another syringe so she could try the process again and was hugely relieved when the doctor reappeared. I guessed he had come to see what the ruckus was about. Anyway, he told the nurse not to worry about another shot. Then he slapped me gently on the shoulder and told me I could go home. He thought my “upper respiratory infection” would ease soon, and I would be feeling well in no time.
What no one could know as I happily redressed and we headed out to the car was that the mishap with the syringe would turn out to be a huge blessing. The true disease working its way through my little body had begun to turn my liver to fat and to rob it of proper function. If I had received the medication prescribed, I would have died. Seconal would have masked the real problem, making a correct diagnosis impossible.
Much to everyone’s concern, I was not feeling any better as the night moved forward. In fact, the later it got, the worse I felt. Fever burned inside me, as if someone had set my body on fire. The aching pain on my right side intensified to a throbbing sensation, and I found my thoughts were increasingly scattered; it was so hard to focus. Young as I was, I began to wonder whether the ER doctor was off in his diagnosis, too. I squeezed my teddy bear tightly to my chest as I lay in my bed, longing for one single moment of relief.
An hour passed, and I could not take the pain anymore. My right side kept throbbing, and I was so dizzy I could not get comfortable. I started to scream.
Mom arrived, flipped on the light, and gasped at the sight of me twisted in my bedclothes.
“Ralph, we’ve got to get him back to the doctor!” Mom yelled.
Dad agreed, hurrying into his shoes.
“He’s got Reye’s syndrome,” Mom said, almost to herself. “I just know it.”
I had no idea what Reye’s syndrome was, but I figured Mom knew. After all, she had a background in obstetrics nursing. Perhaps once we got to the hospital she could give me some medicine to get rid of it.
What I did not find out until much later was that Mom could neither know I had Reye’s syndrome just by looking at me nor knew anything about the condition because of her profession. Her only introduction to the disease had happened weeks earlier while she was listening to the news. As she prepared dinner, a reporter explained about a curious new medical condition impacting children. Experts wondered whether its onset had a link to aspirin, but the theory was under investigation.
Still in my pajamas, I climbed into the car and we sped back to the hospital as Kristin slept in her bed and a sleepy Andy waited for our return. Over the next few minutes, Mom and Dad listened helplessly as my speech started slurring. Even more frightening was my battle between turbulent sleep and outbreaks of combustible, violent anger. In the moments I was conscious, I wanted nothing more than to hit something or someone.
“Tell me what hurts, Jeff. What hurts?” Mom asked, trying to calm me in the midst of one of my outbursts. Even through my stupor and in the darkened car, I could see the concern and compassion in her eyes.
I wanted to tell Mom how I felt, but my mouth did not want to work correctly. No matter how hard I tried, the words came out slurred. My irritation mounted and my feelings of rage increased.
When we finally got back to the Murfreesboro Medical Clinic fifteen minutes later, the admissions officer instructed us to sit down and wait for the physician. At first, I could see Mom tried to be patient. After all, she was a registered nurse and understood the hospital’s hectic, stressful environment. But as she sat in the plastic chair and watched helplessly what was happening to her baby, I could tell she was reaching her limit. She had endured hearing me scream and rage for hours.
“Please help us!” Mom suddenly cried out. I watched as she rose from her seat and approached the reception desk. “You’ve got to help us!”
A nurse rushed over to try to calm my mother.
“Please,” Mom said, “listen to me. My son, Jeff, has Reye’s syndrome. He needs help now!”
The nurse peered in my general direction with a blank look on her face. Even I could tell she did not have a clue about the mysterious illness Mom claimed I had.
In a nerve-grating Southern drawl she asked, “Rise what? How do you spell that?”
I heard the frustration in Mom’s laugh. “I don’t know. Just get the doctor in here!”
The physician arrived and soundly rejected Mom’s amateur diagnosis, though he did not have any answers. He urged my parents to take me to the Neurology Unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville. They were equipped to do further testing.
“I’ll call ahead,” he said as we turned to leave. “The medical staff will be expecting you.”