Saving Henry by Laurie Strongin Page A

clinic several floors below, and Henry could be admitted to New York–Presbyterian Hospital Well Cornell for an endocrine workup. He needed to be tested for a growth hormone deficiency; to undergo a hearing and vision screening; to have kidney scans; and he had to visit a neurologist, as well. Fanconi anemia can wreak havoc on all these systems. Henry was just over two at the time, and although he was developing normally, his doctors wanted to rule out any further complications. With each result, I held my breath. In every case, the news was good.
    Henry’s tests required an overnight stay, so Allen and Henry slept in the hospital while Jack and I returned to the hotel several blocks away so I could go to my early morning appointment. These separations were difficult because those were the times Allen and I most needed to be together for emotional support.
    First thing the next morning, I took Jack with me to the IVF clinic for my daily blood work and sonogram, and then we were to meet up with Henry and Allen. When we arrived at the hospital, Dr. Auerbach was already there. She told us that Dr. Hughes had a family emergency. His wife, Claudia, had been found to be ill with cancer after a long remission. We had grown very close with Dr. Hughes, and he and Allen had developed a particularly strong bond. He was such a wonderful, supportive advocate, doctor, and friend to us. Our hearts broke for him, and for ourselves.
    Despite his own challenges, Dr. Hughes assured us that he would oversee our testing. That day, we learned the good news that Henry’s platelets had increased to 47,000—the highest they had been in months. Though they were still far below normal, they were well above the level of 10,000 that would necessitate a platelet transfusion and signal that we had run out of time. My ovaries were getting big and, succumbing to my desperation for encouragement, the doctors at Cornell predicted that I had ten or more eggs on each side. That night, the four of us went to my aunt and uncle’s house in Morristown, New Jersey, where we would stay until my egg retrieval.
    Each day that February, I got up at five forty-five a.m., kissed my still-sleeping husband and children, and began the two-and-a-half-hour roundtrip drive into the city for a quick blood test and sonogram. Although I would return exhausted, I wanted nothing more than to spend my time with Allen and the kids. We took advantage of the snow on the ground and made snowmen. “I’ll make one of you if you make one of me,” Henry said. In the end, we made a family of four—Mommy, Daddy, Henry, and Jack, each adorned with grapes for eyes, a carrot nose, raisins for the mouth, and our hats and gloves, which made them cute, and us cold. Afterward, we warmed up over hot chocolate and movies.
    We discovered local parks, wandered around Short Hills Mall, and played with Batman toys. Each evening the nurse called to give me my drug dosages. I took my injections, read stories to the boys, and fell asleep, only to start the cycle again. Nearly two weeks after arriving in New York, I was instructed to take hCG, this time to release the twenty or more eggs in my overfilled ovaries. As Allen injected the shot—a nearly two-inch needle into my skin (this was no allergy shot or tetanus booster)—I felt prouder of myself and my body than I had been years earlier, when I was much more athletic, following a hundred-mile bike ride or a twenty-mile run. With thehelp of our doctors, I believed that my body would do the impossible and remove the word “fatal” from Henry’s disease.
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    T wo days later, I had surgery to remove the twenty-four eggs I had produced, which were immediately united with Allen’s sperm in a miracle of science. That was the first time I met my nurse Ruby, a soft-spoken, kind woman. She held my hand in hers and comforted me with her smooth, deep West Indian–accented voice as I was wheeled into the