Day 15

We were at the clinic by 8AM, expecting to spend the better part of the day there, but when Jimmy's blood was tested, all of his numbers looked so good they sent us home. Neither platelets nor blood were necessary, as he is making enough on his own. He had a little fever last night and this morning, and blood cultures are being done as a precaution, but no one is concerned. His body is in overdrive, manufacturing millions of brand new cancer-free blood cells, and that can cause one's temperature to elevate.

While we were waiting for the results of the blood tests to come back, I was idly looking around the room at the other people there: they appeared to range in age from their twenties to their late seventies, but it's hard to tell with cancer patients. I started thinking about my parents' experience, when my mother was diagnosed with colon cancer, in the late 1950's, when she was a relatively young woman. She, like Jimmy, was treated at Emory.

Mac and William and I were at Sallas-Mahone elementary school: William was in the first grade, Mac in the third, and I was in the fourth. It was around lunch time, and Mrs. Allen, the principal, came and got us out of our classes, and took us outside to where Mama and Daddy were waiting in their car in front of the school. They were both crying, and they said that Mama was sick, and that Daddy was taking her to Atlanta to the doctor. They kissed us goodbye, and drove away, leaving the three of us standing there on the sidewalk, staring after them in stunned bewilderment.

When Mama had gotten her diagnosis that morning, Daddy, an Emory graduate, had called an old friend and fraternity brother, who was by then a doctor at Emory, and who told Daddy to bring Mama to Atlanta immediately. Knowing Daddy, he probably had Mama in the car and on their way within fifteen minutes of hanging up the phone.

Back then, Mama's prognosis was considered to be poor, but she had great doctors (I think I remember that her doctor was a Dr. Scarborough) and innovative treatment, and not only did she survive, but she lived for nearly fifty more years. I was thinking this morning of how different Mac's and William's and my life would have been, had our mother not been saved, and that it's one more blessing I owe to Emory Hospital.