I Can Do Anything

When my oldest daughter was six months old, she developed a fever.  Karen and I were new parents, living in Texas away from our family, on Randolph Air Force Base.  We tried everything we could to reduce her fever, but we could not get it down.

So, we took our daughter to the Emergency room at Brooke Army Medical Center.  The doctors at the Emergency Room called in some pediatric specialists and took us over to a special pediatric wing.  There the doctors looked at everything but could not determine a reason for our daughter to have this fever.  Eventually the doctors determined that it was probably a viral bladder infection and they wanted to stick a catheter in to extract a urine sample.

Now remember, she was six months old.  She was very small.  And these two doctors wanted to stick a tube up her and get a urine sample.  Karen could not go through with this, so it was my daughter, on an exam table, two doctors and me.

The kiddo did not like this.  She was scared and screaming, not crying.  It was unreal, unlike any noise I had ever heard her make before.  It did not sound like a noise a baby could make, but she was.  She was screaming and I was standing there holding her arms.  And the doctors were not having any success trying to get the sample.

I was a simple airman at the time, a new father just learning about children and everything involved in raising them.  And I was listening to my daughter scream.  I came to a sudden decision and I looked at the doctors and asked, "Even if you get this sample, will it matter if it is a virus?"  The doctors looked at each other for a minute and then decided they did not need to get the sample.

We never did find out what was wrong.  Our daughter stayed there for another four hours at which time her fever broke and she went home with us.  The joys of parenthood...

I told you this for one reason - if I can handle my daughter's screams at that age, if I can face that, I can do anything.

Anything.