7 ~ (1986—1987)
Crossing the Sea
By the time Karis was three years old, her little body reminded us of pictures of starving children from Africa: huge tummy, spindly arms and legs; that defeated look in her eyes. Our joyous, life-loving, dancing little girl had run out of energy. She didn’t complain, and she didn’t cry out loud, but she spent many hours lying on the couch sucking her thumb, with little tears running silently down her cheeks. Dr. P told us not to worry about the thumb sucking, because she needed it for comfort. Karis would take her thumb out of her mouth just long enough to turn over and insert her other thumb. Her diet was Pregestimil (somehow she managed to drink that horrible, pre-digested formula!), boiled lean chicken, and yogurt. Her grandmother returned from a trip to Ethiopia with a special spoon for eating yogurt that no one else was allowed to use.
During a difficult period around her third birthday when Karis hadn’t been able to eat at all, Dr. P ordered a GI series of x-rays that required drinking contrast. A nurse offered her a strawberry milkshake, “just like at McDonald’s.” Karis was thrilled and excited—until she took one taste of the pink barium, whereupon, enraged, she threw it all over the nurse. If the nurse had just told her it would taste like chalk, Karis would have gathered her courage and drunk it down. As it was, they had to restrain Karis and put an NG tube down to get the barium into her, a miserable process for everyone. Karis never tolerated dishonesty or deception—or NG tubes!
When we saw from the barium x-rays how distended Karis’s intestine was, we worried it might rupture like a balloon. For weeks, diarrhea poured out of her little body like water. The family clinic in town let us take her there for IVs when she dehydrated so that sometimes we were able to avoid the hospital, but usually just IV fluids wasn’t enough and she’d end up back at Children’s in Detroit. Her height and weight weren’t even on the growth chart for her age. She pulled into herself and became a shadow of the happy little girl we had known.
Our new church in Port Huron reached out to us and to her in amazing ways, caring for Danny and Rachel when Karis was in the hospital, helping with meals and errands and even housecleaning. They practiced something they called “soaking prayer.” People would come by the house during the week to pray for Karis, as well as having special prayer for her on Sundays.
Even with all this kindness, I reached the point that I couldn’t handle David traveling so much, and God graciously provided a job for him in Detroit. It was an hour’s drive for him each way, but at least he was home every night. And his office at Wayne State University was right next to the hospital and another Ronald McDonald House, once more our home away from home.
Dr. P didn’t know what to do for Karis, nor did any of the other doctors with whom he discussed her case. Finally, in the fall, he told us that he wanted to try another surgery, to remove yet one more section of her intestine and make a new ileostomy. He told us that he could offer no promises that this would help her, but it was the only thing he could think of, and she couldn’t go on much longer the way she was.
I reacted very negatively to this idea. Put my suffering little girl through another major surgery just because the doctor couldn’t think of anything else to do? With no idea of how or whether it might help her? No, thank you.
David, however, liked the idea of doing something. One Sunday we decided to take the question to the church and ask them to help us pray for direction from God. They prayed for one week, and when we came together the following Sunday, the church told us unanimously that we should go ahead with the surgery. I still said no, but David asked me why I had agreed to ask the church if I wasn’t willing to accept what they had to say. Reluctantly, I submitted, and Karis was put in the hospital for a few weeks on TPN to build her up so that she would have a better chance of surviving the surgery, which took place in early December.
Watching what happened to Karis during the next few months was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. She bounced back from the surgery so fast that we were able to take her home from the hospital in time for Christmas. She started eating—all kinds of real food. She started growing, and grew so fast that I could hardly keep her in clothes that fit. In four months she grew four inches and gained ten pounds! She was back on the growth chart. Her energy returned so that soon she was running around and playing with the other kids, conquering the developmental milestones in which she had lagged behind. It was like watching a wilted little flower blossom in a spring rain.
With some frequency she would run to find me wherever I was in the house and exclaim in wonder, “Mommy, nothing hurts!”
One beautiful spring morning near the end of April, 1987, I looked out of the window above the kitchen sink where I was washing dishes and saw our five-year-old son Danny teaching Karis to ride his old tricycle. As I watched, she came peddling down the sunny sidewalk, blonde braids bouncing on her shoulders. I had a strange sense of dèjá vu . . . Suddenly, I remembered, and broke out in goose bumps. Tears were flowing by the time I reached the telephone to call my husband. It was Jan’s vision, from so long ago that it felt like a different lifetime.
We lived in a gray house. For a few more days, Karis was still three.
“David,” I said into the phone, “we can move to Brazil.
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