I'm one of those Americans who supports the troops because what they do on a regular basis -- walk into the middle of war zones for their country -- is the stuff of my worst nightmares. So I was surprised to hear a veteran of two tours in Iraq talking about something much worse than the time he spent in combat. Surprised ... until I found out he was the father of a severely sick baby girl.
Adam Brazil just did what no parent should have to do. He laid down on a table in an operating room so doctors could remove his kidney and place it in his baby girl. I think I get it now.
It may not be a warzone, but there's no parent who would willingly put themselves in Adam Brazil's shoes. We would much rather have healthy kids than have to face a sick one!
We eagerly await the day our children will enter this world. We prep the nursery. We stock up on adorable stuffed animals and cute little onesies. And when they finally arrive, you're thinking life cannot possibly get better than this. You are a parent, and this little bundle of joy is 6 pounds, 14 1/2 ounces of perfection.
And then something happens. Maybe it's just their first virus or maybe it's something truly awful like congenital nephrotic syndrome, the rare kidney disease that required Hayden Brazil to get her daddy's kidney transplanted into her 1 1/2-year-old body. Frankly, to every parent, no matter how serious that first sickness is, it's like the world is ending. This person you created, who you brought into this world, and who you promised to love and protect with every breath in your body, is hurting, and you can't just make it go away.
If you think you love your child more on the day they're born than you could ever love anyone, you're wrong. The first time they get sick, you fall deeper. And it will continue like that. Seriously. My kid is 6, and it will sound corny as all get out, but I find something new that makes my heart dance around in my chest every single day (OK, maybe not on days when she's trying to tell me that she does NOT like to clean her room and she hates, hates, hates me for making her do it ... but the other days).
I would never say that the despair at seeing your child sick is comparable to a warzone. But when a soldier like Adam Brazil, a man who spent two tours in Iraq as a tank mechanic, says it, it makes sense. He can train with his fellow soldiers. He can prepare himself mentally for combat. But nothing in this world knocks you on your butt like knowing your helpless, wonderful, sweet little baby is sick.
What moment in your baby's life has bowled you over the hardest?
Image via sabianmaggy/Flickr
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Comments 22
I'd give my kids all my organs. Thank God they haven't been terribly sick ever. Worst was my DD mouth infection, some sort of nasty herpes, that would ooze and bleed, she could not eat for 2 weeks, so we kept her on pediasure, even finding a drinking straw she could drink from was terrible. The day she said "give alphabet soup" was a joy.
Jeanne, I know what you mean! After six years I am more in love with my daughter now than the day she was born, and that was THE best day of my life up to that point. How funny that your six year old doesn't like to clean her room, either. We've made a game out of it and that has helped with the complaining a lot. Either we have a race to see if she can clean her room before I finish folding and putting away laundry, or if she can clean her room in under twenty minutes then we make make the dessert of her choice that day. Anything that makes her forget to complain because she is moving too fast to remember she hates it!!!!
I cannot image anyone telling me my daughter was sick, I will pray for that little girl!!!
I was watering my flower while my oldest napped. He was an only child at the time. Well, I didn't hear him get up. He saw me out the window, and came outside.
In that creepy manner that kids have prefected, he stood behind me and didn't make a noise. Until I tossed the waterhose, with metal spray nozel attached, behind me to pull a couple weeds.
It hit him in the head, split his head open, and knocked him out.
He was 3 years old. I thought I had killed him. To this day, 5 years later, I only do yard work once a week, when my kids are GONE for the day.