LOS ANGELES -- The nights can be long and frustrating for doctors whose shifts fall with regularity in the wee hours. A young woman comes in demanding to know if she is pregnant, then fussing for instant termination when she is found to be. An elderly lady wants a cure for her constipation. An addict arrives, angling for a legal fix.
But every once in a while, like the astronomer whose long nocturnal vigils are rewarded one clear night with the smudge of a new comet on his photography plate, we sometimes encounter the extraordinary. I did one recent night.
I doubt you'd peg the couple as extraordinary if you saw them on the street. She had perhaps once been a beauty. Her brown hair was cropped short and hung limply, and she clearly had put on more weight with each of her pregnancies. His tummy flopped over his belt, and he had a kind smile.
Their child was a young adult based on his birth date, but his brain hadn't really developed much beyond that of a 4-year-old. As he lay on the gurney, occasionally using words only his mother could understand, she calmly told of the recent worsening of his medical problems.
When she left the room, he searched for her with the tenacity of an infant, and like an infant, looked into her eyes with pure joy when she returned. Dad waited outside, ready with a smile and a little joke.
Happy young man
They had been caring for their child with love and patience since early infancy, when his problem first began. I suspect that he was a happy young man, in spite of his bad neurological luck. He'd certainly had good luck in his choice of parents.
To me, these parents showed a caliber of heroism that only a few humans are called on to exhibit in a lifetime. They had put aside their own wants, had accepted a child who would never be capable of doing things even the most ordinary of non-handicapped children could, had given their son enough love and physical help to make his life not just bearable but apparently happy.
In the process, they'd raised a bunch of other children now doing well, and they'd stayed together in a strong and supportive marriage.
Far too often, we assume that a child born with a medical problem is a child whose life is not worth living. We think that parenting such a child is an impossible task. When President Clinton vetoed the bill that would have banned partial-birth abortions, implicit in the stories of the women he gathered around him was that they were doing a noble thing for their children and themselves. Extracting the brain from a living, sensate fetus was felt to be better than allowing that fetus to be born with a body that was less than perfect.
