Susquehanna Meditations: Lexical Fables - Shalom

SHALOM

“May you see your children’s children!  Peace be upon Israel”

Psalm 128: 6

      The nurses were worried.  What no parents of a prematurely born baby want to see are worried nurses.   What they want to see are nurses who do their job with a kindly smile when they come into the room and tend to their baby in the plastic bassinet, checking her feeding tube (moved from mouth to more comfortable and convenient nostrils), the IV, the CPAP her lungs needed early on, the pulse-ox-red-dot-band-aid–foot monitor for her oxygen levels, blue light therapy for jaundice (double pirate eye-patches), pooping out the bilirubin (give us tar, then yellow breast milk poops), and her heart monitor.  No beep-beeps to disrupt lullabies.  Make sure the breathing is rhythmic and heartbeats steady. What new parents want to see are nurses relaxing with the parents, bantering friendly banter while changing the diaper (fresh one underneath the soiled one, ready for replacement), or taping happy cards onto the wall, celebrating her birth.   What they want are nurses who share from their experience what they expect when their little preemie goes home. 

      The nurses’ worry was due to them sorely perplexed.   From a medical perspective, everything should be progressing normally.  Neither they nor the MD’s could explain this little girl displaying increasing stress signs:  too anxious to suckle, finger splaying, periodic tremors.  This was a restless, grimacing baby and it made no sense. 

      It didn’t make sense by the numbers indicated on the screens.  But the screens lacked the ability to show what was happening inside this child.   The problem was internal which no machine could measure.

      Her organ cells were arguing.  It started with the spleen cells standing together and demanding that they be in charge of this baby’s growth and progress.  Their demand only made the kidney cells indignant.  They began to tell the spleen cells to back off and mind their place.  Soon the liver cells insisted they were the most important and everyone else should listen to them.  Skin cells shouted back that if it weren’t for them, they all be a loose mess.   Lung cells joined the angry debate.   Blood cells pulsed around spreading the clamor, making all the other organ cells the more incensed.  Pancreas entered the fray and stake her claim to superiority but stomach blocked her from being heard.  The little girl’s brain cells wanted to join in and remind them that they are the chief cells, but since she was a preemie her brain cells were still too smooth, too undeveloped, to get seriously cranky. 

      Amidst the clamor, heart cells had remained silent, embarrassed by this display of selfish stupidity and thoughtless indifference.  Finally, she got fed up with the contention and strife.   “Silence,” demanded heart cells.  For a moment all the cells paused, waiting for her to yell at them all.  She didn’t.  Observing that they were willing to listen, heart cells spoke with a voice soft enough to be ominous.  “Listen, organ cells.  I’ve had it with all of you.  I tell you, I’m shutting down unless you all decide to cooperate, and then where will you be?” 

      Her audience mulled that over. 

      Heart cells continued:  “This disharmony doesn’t help any of us.  Don’t you see that when we work together, we all get better?  We all need each other.  Otherwise, where will we be?  Worse, where will she be?”

      Within hours, the little girl’s stress signals began to disappear.  She began to thrive, eyes bright, lips pursing.  The parents gushed and wept as they thanked the nurses for saving their little girl.  All the nurses, although no longer worried, were still perplexed.