Hope

When I was 5 I started getting very bad and very painful kidney infections. The doctors in Jackson really held out little hope, just continuing the daily antibiotics I had taken since my first surgery at 10 months. Best case scenario was I might live to age 10. That is when the long, both in time and miles, journey started in search of a doctor somewhere who could help me. We made appointments with urologists in every major city up the eastern seaboard. Starting at Emory where they had no real answers all the way to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. I don't remember the kind doctor's name but I remember sitting in his office, after he had examined me, with mom and Walter during a very complicated conversation which went way over my head. He gave them the best news they had heard. There was a procedure called a urostomy that they were doing right there at Johns Hopkins with much success. However, he told them there was a surgeon right in our own backyard at Oschner Hospital in New Orleans. He highly recommended him and made a call to him right then and made an appointment for us to see him. As the doctor hung up the phone he looked over at me and burst out laughing and pointing at me. I had gotten into my mom's purse, found her powder compact and rubbed every bit of it on my face and no one even noticed. Probably trying to be a Goth way too early!