Brave Lydia
Peter has already updated the home page with today’s news about my precious granddaugher, Lydia Hope Dishman. I’m sure Angie will also add a note as to her adventures of today. I just want to occupy this spacetime unit of your day to tell you how proud “Grandpop” is of his 3-year-old grandchild. While the rest of the family recessed for a late dinner this evening, I volunteered to stay with Lydia in her private room at Medical City (a place I know VERY well from Susan’s many visits there in this decade). In spite of the morphine they were giving her as she recovered from major abdominal surgery, she always responded cogently to any words I spoke to her. In that way she was very much like her beloved “Nana” who always made sure that every visitor to her hospital room was welcomed. She listened intently to my story of the new tree I planted in my front yard today; she held my hand as we watched the weather channel together and she even commented on the giraffes that suddenly appeared on the screen; she wanted me to point out Texas on the weather map that was forecasting major storms for our area today; and so on. Never whining, yet her weak voice–made raspy by the NG tube down her throat–almost broke my heart as I watched her be the perfect hostess to me while I was supposed to be hosting her.
Unexpectedly, Lydia’s pediatrician Dr. Daniel stopped by to check on her. “She’s my favorite patient these days,” he said. “I love all your grandchildren, and their mom is a very special lady indeed,” he went on to comment. Swelling with pride, I expressed my agreement with the good doctor. He went on to note that Lydia was the youngest patient ever in his practice to have appendicitis. “We only see one or two cases a year, and sometimes none,” he said.
Well, Lydia, I expect that in spite of all the things that happened to you today, when you grow up they will all become a very dim memory of the events of April 5, 2005 when you were only 3 years old. And you might not even remember that Grandpop was with you that day. But perhaps sometime in the future you will read this old “blog” and recall just how proud of you I was (as indeed we all were). And remember this, too: when some doctor says you have symptoms of appendicitis, tell him or her it can’t be. Just say, “I’ve already had my appendix taken out, when I was only 3, and I made my family very proud.”