Cancer Diary: Anatomy of an Emergency
I didn’t come to know the terrain of emergency through cancer. I came to know it through my children. My daughter was born with spina bifida. Her VP shunt—a fragile lifeline—meant living with the knowledge that acute hydrocephalus could strike anytime, and quickly. At one ER visit, I found her given morphine for neck and head pain. Her shunt was failing. I shook her awake, reprimanded the doctor, taught a neurosurgical resident how to check the shunt, and arranged for her transfer to a research hospital that could actually manage her care. Instinct and persistence—not protocol—saved her that day. Her care, intense as it was, became easy-peasy compared to my son, born three years later. He’s now 45, perhaps the oldest living person with CHARGE Syndrome. His first two years were a breath-by-breath battle—choking, clogging, CPR of varying lengths (the longest: twenty minutes), and daily resuscitation that blurred into routine. I stopped counting most things. But I do remember five comic...