Sticking The Needle In
My twelve-year-old nephew was diagnosed with Type I diabetes on Christmas Day. Beyond the near coma and possible death -- had my sister not taken him to the hospital when she did -- I was struck by two things that reflect his sense of humor and love for life.- When the nurse asked him where to stick the needle on his fingers, he pointed here and there. The sticking happened many times as she and the CCU doctors experimented to determine the type of treatment he would assume. In time, the nurse noticed that he was directing her to make a pattern out of the pin pricks -- the patterns of smily faces on each of this fingers.
- While on a breathing machine, he learned a new trick. In time, he called to my sister's attention the picture of a castle he had drawn using the green line on the breathing machine screen. He had accomplished it by huffing and puffing -- learning just the right sequence needed to draw a picture out of that green glowing line. (He also held his breath until the line was flat and the machine started beeping. Yikes!)
This New Year's, I am thankful for his safe diagnosis and that he is still with us. But I am also grateful that somewhere in the world there are kids growing up who know how to take bad news in stride -- and to march to the beat of their own drummer.
Happy New Year 2006.
posted by Jay @ 5:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home