Precious and Disadvantaged

Elizabeth Fleeson

Comp 1

Precious and Disadvantaged

The importance of reading and writing are often overlooked in our everyday lives due to how incredibly basic these two skills seem to most people. I remember going to my first few years of grade school and learning how to read. I was constantly doing flash cards at home with my mother and reading aloud to my father while he worked on his pea green boat in the garage. As I grew older, I began to incorporate reading into other areas of my life, such as reading street signs while driving, or ordering food off of a menu at a restaurant. Although these things may seem completely natural to you and I, not everyone has this advantage.

My younger brother, Edison, was born on February 22nd, 2004. He weighed a healthy eight pounds, and six ounces. His eyes were a beautiful soft green, and his eyelashes were thick and long. Everything went smooth with Edison’s delivery, and he and my mother were home the very next day. My mother and father never got any sleep because he cried constantly. I was too young to think anything of his constant crying, as I just assumed that was normal of a new born baby. My parents on the other hand, were growing extremely concerned. At Edison’s one month checkup, my parents mentioned to the doctors that his crying had only increased since bringing him home. The doctors performed a few tests and took some x-rays. They found something that would change Edison’s life forever.

 Craniosynostosis is a birth defect in which one or more of the joints between the bones of a baby’s skull closes prematurely, before a baby's brain is fully formed. When a baby has craniosynostosis, its brain can't grow in its natural shape and the head becomes misshapen. Edison was diagnosed with craniosynostosis at 1 month old and this explained his constant crying. He was having headaches and struggling to grow because of the lack of room in his skull. There is a surgery that can be performed in order to fix his condition, but the survival rate is less than 50%. My parents were hesitant to follow through with the surgery, because they were scared of losing their brand new baby boy. After weighing the pros and cons, my parents decided that it would be best for Edison in his adult life, if he survived, that they go through with the operation.

My parents took Edison to several doctor’s appointments before his surgery. He went twice a week to visit a specialist and undergo blood tests or other painful procedures that my mother hated to watch him endure. The date was set for his surgery to take place when he was six months old. Every day leading up to his surgery date, my mother grew more and more attached to him. She constantly had him wrapped tightly within her arms. She sat by his crib at night to watch him rest. She never slept or ate. I watched her give all of the life she had within her to her baby that might be without one.