expressed the opinion that the tumor was “quiescent.” The miracle had happened. We were wild with hope.
4
To this day, what caused Johnny’s spectacular improvement during the winter is unknown. Anybody may have his guess; the plain fact is that we simply do not know. The recovery may have been due to the X-rays, the effect of which is often delayed and cumulative; to the mustard which can do unpredictable things to a body; to the fact of his youth and the growth of healthy cells despite the tumor; to mysteries in the human spirit; to the Gerson diet; or to combinations and per-mutations among all these. Similarly, we do not know— nobody knows—what caused the severe deterioration that came next. Something, something kicked that volcanic tumor loose again. We do not know what. All we know is that for some months Johnny was miraculously better, and then very suddenly and sorely worse again.
February, 1947, started very well. Three months before, Johnny had scarcely been able to walk. Now, though it would be an exaggeration to say that he romped all over the place, he was capable of walking half a mile or so. He veered a little to the right, his left foot was wobbly, and he needed a modicum of guidance—which of course he resolutely refused to admit—but the improvement was incontestable. Even his left hand could not have been very bad at this time, because one evening, at his insistence, I watched him give himself a hypodermic injection of liver extract on the side above the hip, an awkward place to reach. I could not possibly have done on anybody, let alone myself, what Johnny did so skillfully. He took the big syringe apart, boiled the two sections, put it together unaided, even though his fingers had little grip, inserted the needle into the ampule, drew it out, carefully tested it to eliminate the tiny bubbles, pinched up the flesh for the injection, explored to see if there were any veins nearby, and rammed the inch-and-a-half-long needle home. He sat down, grinning; and the sweat was coming out on my forehead, but not on his.
Frances had rehearsed this with him several times, though she had a horror of doing the actual injection herself. In fact one of the reasons he did it alone was to spare her. They called it “bayonet practice.”
Steadily, too, she helped him in physical activity. She taught him to be deliberate about almost every physical movement, so that he picked his stance carefully and knew exactly what he was going to do next before doing it. The stronger parts of his body must, she told him, be trained to assist those weaker; more and more his good right side must take up some of the burden from the other; she showed him how his right hand could unobtrusively assist the left. In all this two mentors were of assistance—Buddha, with his lesson BE AWARE, and, of all dissimilar personalities, Mr. La Guardia and his slogan PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE.
Johnny was vigorously interested, too, in things external. An item came in the papers to the effect that the Dutch royal family was having some sort of minor dynastic trouble. He sighed. “T o think that after two thousand years of science, history still gets snarled by that sort of thing!”
Years before, at Lincoln, Johnny had met and liked a girl named Mary. Often Frances talked to him about falling in love and marrying some day; once he smiled in reply, “Very well, just throw a chemist across my path.” Mary came back to his mind. Johnny was very casual about it. “Oh, by the way ... “ he began with Frances, and then recalled Mary to her attention. Frances called her mother, and then Johnny talked to Mary herself on the telephone, and they arranged to meet. Johnny felt very proud and grown up. He chuckled later. “As soon as I talked to her my temperature went up and it’s taken three days to get it back to normal.”
Once a strange thing happened. Frances, on whom this struggle was exacting a frightful toll, telephoned Mount to ask some
4
To this day, what caused Johnny’s spectacular improvement during the winter is unknown. Anybody may have his guess; the plain fact is that we simply do not know. The recovery may have been due to the X-rays, the effect of which is often delayed and cumulative; to the mustard which can do unpredictable things to a body; to the fact of his youth and the growth of healthy cells despite the tumor; to mysteries in the human spirit; to the Gerson diet; or to combinations and per-mutations among all these. Similarly, we do not know— nobody knows—what caused the severe deterioration that came next. Something, something kicked that volcanic tumor loose again. We do not know what. All we know is that for some months Johnny was miraculously better, and then very suddenly and sorely worse again.
February, 1947, started very well. Three months before, Johnny had scarcely been able to walk. Now, though it would be an exaggeration to say that he romped all over the place, he was capable of walking half a mile or so. He veered a little to the right, his left foot was wobbly, and he needed a modicum of guidance—which of course he resolutely refused to admit—but the improvement was incontestable. Even his left hand could not have been very bad at this time, because one evening, at his insistence, I watched him give himself a hypodermic injection of liver extract on the side above the hip, an awkward place to reach. I could not possibly have done on anybody, let alone myself, what Johnny did so skillfully. He took the big syringe apart, boiled the two sections, put it together unaided, even though his fingers had little grip, inserted the needle into the ampule, drew it out, carefully tested it to eliminate the tiny bubbles, pinched up the flesh for the injection, explored to see if there were any veins nearby, and rammed the inch-and-a-half-long needle home. He sat down, grinning; and the sweat was coming out on my forehead, but not on his.
Frances had rehearsed this with him several times, though she had a horror of doing the actual injection herself. In fact one of the reasons he did it alone was to spare her. They called it “bayonet practice.”
Steadily, too, she helped him in physical activity. She taught him to be deliberate about almost every physical movement, so that he picked his stance carefully and knew exactly what he was going to do next before doing it. The stronger parts of his body must, she told him, be trained to assist those weaker; more and more his good right side must take up some of the burden from the other; she showed him how his right hand could unobtrusively assist the left. In all this two mentors were of assistance—Buddha, with his lesson BE AWARE, and, of all dissimilar personalities, Mr. La Guardia and his slogan PATIENCE AND FORTITUDE.
Johnny was vigorously interested, too, in things external. An item came in the papers to the effect that the Dutch royal family was having some sort of minor dynastic trouble. He sighed. “T o think that after two thousand years of science, history still gets snarled by that sort of thing!”
Years before, at Lincoln, Johnny had met and liked a girl named Mary. Often Frances talked to him about falling in love and marrying some day; once he smiled in reply, “Very well, just throw a chemist across my path.” Mary came back to his mind. Johnny was very casual about it. “Oh, by the way ... “ he began with Frances, and then recalled Mary to her attention. Frances called her mother, and then Johnny talked to Mary herself on the telephone, and they arranged to meet. Johnny felt very proud and grown up. He chuckled later. “As soon as I talked to her my temperature went up and it’s taken three days to get it back to normal.”
Once a strange thing happened. Frances, on whom this struggle was exacting a frightful toll, telephoned Mount to ask some
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