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September 23, 2004 ~ Doomsday Prophecies
Thursday.
"I kidnapped some babies from the bookstore," I told Morgan.
"Yay! More freakiness!"
"heh. Little babies floating in a coffee cup!"
"Crazy!"
Over a year ago, I found a pot of plants sitting in the dorm trash at the college. It had been a nice pot of plants, with several different species, some flowers, some ivy, but all of the plants were dead, dry and brown. Except for one. A tenacious little succulent that clung to the lump of remaining bone-dry dirt with its one remaining withered stalk in that cracked and ugly pot with all of the brown and withered foliage. I did not know what that plant was, but I smiled at its stubborn will to live and brought it home. Repotted it. Watered it. Put it in the sun.
It regained its color and the long fleshy leaves perked back up again. Curious, I looked it up. "Mother of a thousand." "Devil's backbone." The second name I understood. It did look sort of like a crooked and evil spine, with all of those plump leaves standing out like ribs. "A wonderful little freak of a plant," Morgan liked to call it. But "Mother of a thousand"?
Well, I soon found out. The plant, now happy, started to produce "babies." Hundreds of babies, from the ends of its leaves. And the babies dropped off and planted themselves in the pot below them (and on the windowsill, the desk, the floor, and in the other plant's pots...). Mother of a thousand indeed. Morgan took great joy in taking handfuls of babies and tossing them into places where I'd least expect to find the plants. I now have hundreds of the little mother of a thousands, and Morgan and I give them away to friends and neighbors.
Today I spotted a similar species in the college bookstore, but this one was a different variation than ours. I asked if I could, then swiped three babies and carried them back to my office, where I put them in a coffee cup with some water.
The original mother of a thousand now sits on my computer desk, a symbol of hope, perseverance, and tenacious life. Soon, with these three new babies, I'll have a whole new crop, and I'm looking forward to it.
Hope. The world has felt awfully harsh, lately, and I've been clinging to the little moments of levity that I can find. Lying on the love seat in the afternoon sunlight, my head on Morgan's chest while he was reading. Picking fresh vegetables from the stalls in the farmer's market, and treating ourselves with some fudge after we were done. Watching Banjo the wolf tear into some pumpkins (heh. We got pictures. I'll post them soon).
Biking up Jones Mountain earlier this week, I found that I'm already able to continue up the really steep parts without having to stop and walk my bike. I beat Morgan to the top of Rhododendron Ridge, too, but that may have had something to do with the fact that he kept crashing into trees and branches and rocks. Yes. Going slowly uphill. I'm baffled as to how he managed it, but he did. His balance could definitely use some work.
After one particularly magnificent crash, he caught back up with me, and asked, rather absentmindedly, "Is your cell phone okay? It didn't fall, did it?" I laughed and answered, "Um... Yeah, I'm not the one who went flying over a log; you were, you goof!"
"Hey! Shut up!" But he was laughing.
Lately, tasks that should be very simple have been incredibly difficult to do. My motivation is completely shot, and I'm trying to get it back, trying to force myself to be productive. It's been hard, though, with everything that has been going on this whole last month, plus some recent developments.
Morgan has been sick with a bad cold, and I started to get it too, but took my preventative "potion" in time. I did manage to hurt my back somehow, though, and moving has been painful. On top of the cold, Morgan has managed to get poison ivy all over him. Literally. Not just his hands and arms, but there's poison ivy on his forehead and foot and even on his... well, um... everywhere. He's miserable. We were working in a patch of it last Sunday at the rescue, putting up fencing, and I know I touched it, but I didn't break out in any rashes. Poor Morgan is incredibly sensitive to it and will break out in rashes if he merely looks at it the wrong way.
The cold, the rashes, the back problems, though, those are temporary conditions which will pass, and we're trying not to let them get us down. (Heh. Easy for me to say; I don't itch EVERYWHERE.) We've had some more bad news, recently, though, and that's a little harder to take.
Morgan's father is having a rough time lately, and we are concerned for him, of course. It's just sad and hard and unfortunate, but not my story to tell here, except in terms of Morgan's and my support and love for him, and our hope that he can make it through this okay.
The day after that news, Morgan got a call from his mother. She had been having problems with her limbs going numb, and thought it was an old back injury recurring, so she went in for an MRI. The back problem is fine, they declared. Instead, they found something else, something the doctor was pretty sure is Multiple Sclerosis. We are hoping against hope that the doctor was dead wrong, but it will be a while before the final results from the specialist are in.
Meanwhile, we worry and hope and pray. Morgan's younger brother was diagnosed with MS a few years back, so the family is all too familiar with that disease. We're afraid that lightning has struck twice in the family.
No specific cause has been settled on for MS, though there are several theories (ranging from environmental concerns to a virus trigger to diet to an over-active immune system). No one gene controls it, but there is evidence that it is at least in part genetic and hereditary, because individuals are much more likely to be diagnosed with it if they have a family member who has it, and the risk increases exponentially, the more relatives who have it and the closer they are. Multiple Sclerosis does not yet have a cure, though there are treatment plans that slow it and reduce symptoms. If Morgan's mother does have it, we'll do what we can. It's unfair and sad and painful to see someone you love go through this waiting game, but when are incurable diseases and ailments ever fair? So we wait. And hope.
I mentioned this waiting game for the results to a friend today, and she became very concerned. She knew of Morgan's brother's diagnosis, and she knows a bit about the disease.
"Oh, that's bad. That means Morgan is more likely too," she worried. Well, possibly, but we sure hope not, I answered.
The possibility, though, has been heavily on our minds. I keep reminding myself to be rational. Not to worry about something that has yet to happen. The diagnosis hasn't even been made, yet, and even if it is positive, there's no way to know that Morgan will be then be the third lightning strike. This may very well be his family's last brush with that life-sucking, evil, horrid terminal illness. The damage it has done is far too much already, thanks. We'll pass on a second and third round.
But there is no way to know, and the first thing MS teaches you is that you are not in control. So we wait, and we see how the cards play out. And we try not to think too much about a future that hopefully won't happen.
Then my friend said, "Oh what if there are kids! I know how badly you wanted to, but... you guys ever think about adoption?"
She wasn't being mean, though those words did sting. Her thoughts, through compassion, had merely taken the exact same track as mine had, when I first heard. Concern and worry and compassion for Morgan's mother. Then moments later, I hope Morgan doesn't end up with it, too. Then, And what of our children?
But up until that moment I had never considered the possibility that this might mean that perhaps we should not have children. I had just been thinking, I don't want to see Morgan suffer through that, and I don't want to see my children suffer through it either. But to perhaps refrain from having children due to increased risk? That possibility knocked me flat. This goal that has been central to our life together... Abandoning it? No. Please no.
Up until that point, my thoughts had gone in the direction of dealing with it when and if it came. Of hoping that my children and Morgan wouldn't end up with a diagnosis a few decades down the line. I had figured, This changes nothing. It is just an increased chance, not a definite guarantee. But I realized, then, that yes. People who have genetic dispositions that make certain terminal illnesses more likely refrain from having children quite frequently, in light of the possibilities. Such a choice is considered humane and responsible, to most people. To me, just now, it is looking rather ghastly, though.
As horrible as MS is, one can still live a full (if likely shortened, and, in the end, restricted) life. The possibility of pain later in life is no reason not to create that life at all, is it? I'd rather live in hope that a cure will be found in my lifetime, than live in fear of this horrible disease, not taking all of the chances that I can because of it. I have known two amazing people who also happen to have MS. My future children could become another of these amazing people. Who am I to decide that life is not worth living under such circumstances? I know two amazing people who I most certainly hope would disagree, though they are quite personally familiar with the disease.
But see, my friend's reaction made me examine my motivations a little. Should I make that decision for my child? There is very little chance that I'll ever personally get it, so, easy for me to say, huh? Am I letting my instinct and personal emotional attachment to having biological children rule a bit too strongly? What with the state that the world is in--overpopulation, all of the needy parentless children out there--doing anything other than adopting is inherently selfish, I know that. To add to it a heightened risk for a debilitating terminal illness? Just because I want to be a mother?
But it is driving me crazy, all of this doomsday talk about how everybody is at risk, how possibilities that haven't even happened yet and may never happened are being taken so seriously. And even if those possibilities do happen, treatments are getting better every day. What with the mapping of the human genome and stem cell research, we may actually be very close to a cure (if Bush would just get the hell out of the way, that is...).
I want to be hopeful, not pessimistic. I don't want to think about Morgan confined to a wheelchair and dying decades before I do. It hasn't happened yet and may never happen, so why the hell dwell on it? I don't want to think about my children suffering through MS either, for that may not ever happen. Good grief, they haven't even been conceived yet, give them a freaking chance, you know? And his mother hasn't even been positively diagnosed yet, for heaven's sake!
Morgan and I were walking across campus this afternoon, talking about our friend's words, and he stopped under an oak tree, smiled, and turned to me. "I agree with you. I want to live in hope, not in fear. I want to believe that in the next few decades, we will be looking at a cure anyway, and all of this worry will be pointless."
I need to believe that. Regardless of Morgan or children, I need to believe that. For my friend with MS. For my brother-in-law who has it too. For my mother-in-law, if she does end up with it.
Hope, and life that just keeps clinging on and living, like the mother of a thousand, despite the bone-dry dirt, the lack of sun, despite all signs point to the fact that you're doomed.
Yet there is a part of my heart that can't help but wonder if, perhaps, it would be right to question our decision to have children at this point? Perhaps I'm being irresponsible. Selfish. Perhaps.
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