Thank you, God, for modern medicine.
My great-grandfather Conway was a Methodist minister, and his first church was to be in Buffalo, New York. He had three young sons (Buster, Bob, and Dick), a baby daughter (Barbie Hope) and a young wife to pack up and take from Baltimore to New York. What happened next is a bit of a mystery, and my clues are only family stories, I have no documentation (yet). What I can document is that the young wife returns without a husband and minus one son (Buster) to Baltimore, to move in with her husband's aunt.
According to family lore, my great-grandfather died of pneumonia from influenza, as did Buster. We originally thought Bob brought it home from school, but we now know they were gone before Bob was sent to school. We don't even think he made it to take on the church we was assigned in Buffalo. My great-grandmother was a single-parent working mother before such a thing was commonplace, trying to raise three children alone in Baltimore.
Joey has had three episodes of turning blue. Once he got severely chilled in school, and went cold. Then he had croup- with an onset like lightning. And now he's had pneumonia. So I find myself wondering if I would have my son if I had been my great-grandmother. Would by little Buddy have met the same fate as Buster?
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2 comments:
Oh, this made me cry today. I think I'm just too close to those same thoughts and feelings; if Nik had been born even twenty years ago he might not have made it at all.
While I curse and rail at the shortcomings of the medical profession on many occasions, I am sincerely grateful for the miracle of my son.
Such true words. Think about all the things that we cure so simply with antibiotics or pain medication or having a warm, dry place to live. We are really lucky to live in the time that we do.
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