My White Hairs
The day was July 27, 1994 and I pushed my child out of the womb. He was glorious with this shinning fluorescent glow. And as I held my newly born baby for the first time, something went wrong. The baby boy I was to call Anthony couldn’t breathe. The doctor took Anthony from me and hooked him up to an oxygen machine where a mask went over his face. It saved my babies life. I later learned of Anthony’s head disease. The doctor said this disease affects the skull and possibly the brain. So my husband and I had to make a crucial decision.
Through days and nights we thought long and hard about whether or not to accept the surgery. If we were to accept the surgery; Anthony could live a normal life, a prosperous life. One full of love and passion but in the case the procedure was to fail Anthony would die. I finally made my decision which to this day, I think was the correct decision.
There were times where I was worried for my son. Every summer, Anthony would beg me to watch him play in the neighborhood pool. I would say yes. Yet, he always knew I wouldn’t swim but he asked anyway. He knew I’d dangle my feet in the water and read a book. Still, he continued to ask. One day I was reading my romantic novel about a female lover falling deeply in love with her best friend and in the book. The girl was expressing her thoughts by dancing around her room and making cute hearts around his name everywhere in her journal. Then all of a sudden, a tan young man says out of the blue. “Maum, is this your child?”
I looked up at the man with anxiety and recently discovered that the man was a life guard. I look at my son and he had blood all over his chin. I start to freak out. Panic took over my newly pale face. All I could possibly think of was nothing. Nothing at all. Anthony then tilted his head backwards and his swelling chin began to splatter out some speckles of blood. The skin from his chin just got pulled back and popped open. It was as if an alligator waited to snatch its prey then instantly sprang up and quickly opened its mouth to a generous 145 degree angle and then back down into the right position.
In an instant, I sprang up from my seat, grabbed my son by the wrist swiftly and rapidly, and yanked him to our car.
Off to the hospital we went only to learn that the doctor wouldn’t work on my sons chin till he felt the need. Finally, after an hour of waiting, the doctor came to see us. He examined my son and just said, “Yup.” A very slow minute passed by as he talked again. “That cut is way too swollen for stitches; you should have brought him in earlier.”
I was furious, but I maintained a good attitude towards the guy and allowed him to keep looking at my son. He then put on small pieces of tape to help hold together the skin of my son’s chin. The doctor called this particular method butterflies. And then he simply sent us on our way.
About one year later around Christmas, Anthony was riding his brand new $150 blue bike. Given that the bike was a little too big for him; he decided to try it out anyway. It wasn’t too long before his face planted into the hard cold cement right outside our house. Once again cutting his chin open, so this time I took him back to the hospital and Anthony received his stitches. Also, he got a whopping, big fat pill injected into his chin to prevent infection. Now I still felt bad for Anthony, just not nearly as petrified as I did when he cut his chin open that first time.
In 2008, our family decided to go to Ohio for a Christmas vacation. We wanted to spend time with our cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Just as I started to get relaxed, all of my kids came running up the stairs from playing hide and go seek in the dark except Anthony. Soon enough Anthony came up stairs holding back a tear or two and says his foot is killing him. I decide to take a ganger being the loving mother I am. I notice a famish purplish-brown emerging at the surface of his upper foot or longest toe. On top of that, his foot grew in size from a 7 to an 11 in a matter of seconds. My husband that happened to be sitting right next to me started looking at his foot now too and he says, “Come over here and let me bend it. Then you’ll feel much better.”
I quickly shout, “No! His foot looks broken.”
Of course, having a teacher’s degree from college and not medicine, my family come to the rash decision of it’s just a bruise. Nearing the end of the trip, rumors to the entire family spread to how Anthony was milking it and how he should just suck it up. Of course I denied them all witch initially made me look like the crazy old woman who loves her cats. The cats being my son Anthony and I being that old woman.
When we arrive back in Denver, I take Anthony to get an x-ray and it turns out that Anthony did break his middle knuckle on this 2nd toe. Boy was it sweet to hear my children apologize to Anthony for making him run around through agony and suffering. Not only for his sake, but also for my sanity.
Recently last summer in 2010, Anthony was on a trip with his friends to King Soopers. A couple hours after he departed I received a text message revealing that Anthony fell on his bike but it was only a minor scratch. So I continued on with my day like any normal day. I would finish up work then go relax at home and start to cook an evening dinner. As I began to start dinner. Anthony walked in the door. I remember him wearing his gray gander mountain shirt and long athletic shorts. But what caught my eye the most was the helmet hat hair and also the poor wrap job around his left anchoring elbow. I asked him to take off the bandage and give me a look. The so called scratch had ridged lines deep within the skin of his elbow and was saturated with a red swollenness unlike anything I’ve seen in a long time. Then he began his story.
