The Bridge Of Life by Brad Fisher
Lech Lecha. G-d said to Avraham, “Go (further) away-for your (own benefit)-from your land, your birth place and your father’s house, to the land which I will show you.(Parshas Lech Lecha)” I’m not the most religious Jew but I am spiritual and I identify deeply with my culture and heritage and religion. I’m the father and main caregiver to a 6 year old beautiful little girl who was only given 2 years to live. There are moments I deeply identify with Avraham being sent by G-d to an unknown land.
I just returned from a Canada Day celebration that we were not able to attend at the last minute because our daughter Shira lost her vital signs and went into respiratory arrest as I was parking at the event. It’s moments like these I feel I’ve been sent to an unknown land. I don’t have time to think of anything at times like this but work on our daughter and make her live. I suctioned the secretions from her mouth like mad with one hand while pulling the thick secretions out of her mouth and nose with my other hand. I was standing on the edge of the abyss again watching our beautiful little girl slip away into G-d’s hands as I desperately worked on her to keep her with us.
Our daughter suffers from the number one genetic killer of infants and toddlers called SMA Type 1 or Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 1. 1 in 40 people carry the gene and one in 5000 babies are born with it. It is considered such a serious threat that it’s included in the updated version for the genetic screen for Ashkenazi Jews even though the rates aren’t higher for this population over the rest of the population. At 4 months of age Shira was diagnosed with SMA because we noticed she was not meeting regular physical developmental milestones. Days like today (reviving our daughter) are not uncommon and our lives are governed by the 24 our multi-disciplinary intensive care we deliver to our daughter Shira.
I’m crying as I write this, tearful, fearful, shaken to the core of my soul once again. I hear our daughter’s beautiful little voice echoing from the other room as she lays on the floor playing with her bubby. When Shira was diagnosed we were told, “There is nothing you can do just take your child home and love her until she dies.” In some ways this statement echoes true for all of us even those of us with regular healthy kids. We all take our children home and love them until they or we die don’t we. What a thing to say to a patient and her family. Shouldn’t the more appropriate response after diagnosing anyone with a terminal illness be we can’t cure your daughter of this disease but we can support you in caring for her and help you deliver a high quality of life to her? What drives doctors to be so HOPELESS? In our world we believe there is only endless HOPE not a hopeless end. There is also a big difference between delivering daily care to a person with a life threatening illness and just diagnosing them with an illness. Most doctors have never had to care for a sick human being they just advise other’s on what to do and I’m sure 50% of the time the advice is riddled with personal biases and no experience to base the advice on. We have only met one doctor who said, “I have no experience with this illness but together we will find out what to do, create a plan and implement it.” We have realized that doctors are people to and suffer from the same daily afflictions the rest of the population suffers from and so great care must be taken when prognosis and advice is given. You must be on your toes and advocate for your child at every moment, due diligence becomes second nature and conventional wisdom must be locked away.
When death is near and has been fended off again you can’t help but feel you are walking on the Bridge Of Life (Gesher Hachaim). It’s thought that the bridge of life is a bridge between past and future. When people ask me if I have received any gifts from my experience caring for our daughter or learned anything I respond with, “ I have never been so present, I don’t have time to think of the past and I certainly don’t think of the future because the future almost always does not include being with our beautiful daughter. Being completely present, in the moment, aware of our daughter’s breath, this is the gift!” “ (Tehillim 34:13) If someone wants to live (a true life), he must “love days” – love his days to the extent that they should not be lost, but remain preserved for him(Gesher Hachaim by Rabbi Tucazinsky).” Another soul shaking lesson I have learned is visit the sick. Compassion without Action is empty and one must act and actually do something that will benefit someone in need. Bikkur cholim or Visiting The Sick has become a passion of mine. Until our daughter was born I’m afraid I did not do my share of visiting the sick. If I could pass on any advice from our families experience it is to reach out, visit and help out those in need after all it’s a Mitzva (good deed). We have felt so lonely at times, abandoned, and left out. Yes illness is scary but you will find when you get to know these people, children, with life threatening illness you will increase the joy and remove a lot of the oye from your own life.
Another question we are often asked is what keeps you going? Why do you do this? Well we love our daughter and we would do anything for her is our reply. The second answer I give is a quote from a Hasidic Sefer (from a book titled Wrestling With The Angel Published by Schoken) I read when our daughter was about a year old that gave us comfort, peace and hope. “How will we recognize those we loved when we meet them after 120 years in the world-to-come? If they died young, will they have grown old? If they were hurt or wounded, will they have healed? How will we know them, how will they know us if we have changed or aged? The answer is that we will know them, we will recognize them because they will be clothed and cloaked in the mitzvahs we do in their name.”
