It’s now hitting me that it’s rather dangerous to enter the IU medical library and sit down in front of a keyboard, given my internal whirl of emotions and a state of French-roast-induced mental hyperventilation. Oh well, here goes…
Even in the year 2005, at one of the top hospitals in the Midwest, medical decision makers still don’t routinely punch catheters into a sick man’s torso and drain it like a dirty crankcase. They have to seriously think about it first. And then they have to assemble a crack professional team. Neither will they go in blind, but insist on using precise, x-ray imaging to guide them. That’s why Bruce had to endure yet another wait as technicians fiddled with the CT scanner.
But over the next few hours an astonishing sequence unfolded. After coming through surgery (with multi-hued banners rippling in the wind), he was soon off the IV sedation, breathing on his own, and writing truncated notes on the paper he’d asked for with sign language. By evening his ventilator tubes had been removed and he was insightfully recounting his ordeal. When we marveled at his vocabulary he dismissed it with a quip: “For all you know, Art Buchwald could be in the next cubicle.” I was moved not only by the return of his wit, but by all the other honest, pure-hearted expressions that he earnestly and meticulously communicated to each of us who paid a visit.
He told us that he wanted, more than ever, to view “The Passion of the Christ,” so he could be reminded of someone who had suffered more than he.
I am indeed proud of my courageous son and how he persevered though his silent trial and emerged with love, optimism, humility, wisdom, and good manners. I think it was Winston Churchill who said, “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”