Chapter sixty-one: ...First Do No Harm

Hello all! I hope you had a good week, wherever you're reading from. I had an orthodontist appointment this past Wednesday, and I was taking selfies in response to the ones my friend was sending me. I locked my phone, but my orthodontist came over before I could put my phone away completely, and he wanted to see the picture cause I was still making strange faces. My face ID didn't work, so he caught a full glimpse of my Meryl Streep wallpaper off Pinterest instead. He asked, "You like Meryl Streep?" "I do! I watch too many movies," I said.

Then, he put a blue light on my bottom tooth to fix a loose bracket. Naturally, I wasn't supposed to talk or move. He proceeds to ask, "Have you seen the one with Dustin Hoffman? The one where they get divorced? Gosh, what is the name of that movie?" The whole time I'm sounding like a seal trying to spit it out. He says, "You know it. I know you're excited. Just hang on." When he finished, he asked, "What is it?" "Kramer vs. Kramer," I promptly said. "There it is," he laughed. I don't know how entertaining that was to read, but I think it makes for a good story.

I would prefer not to think about the indirect and direct object pronoun Spanish test that I have on Monday, which I'm certain I will fail, so in other news, The Golden Globes are tonight! I did not buy a red dress only to watch celebrities get awards from my couch... except that I did. (My favorite store is going bankrupt, so everything in there is relatively cheap.)

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Anyhow, from 1997, this week's movie is about a mother, Lori Reinmuller (Meryl,) whose five-year-old son, Robbie (Seth Adkins,) begins showing symptoms of epilepsy. It starts as some extra falls at school but becomes an even bigger problem as the movie continues and Robbie falls off the family horse. Numerous doctor visits conclude he has epilepsy. On top of which, the family's insurance provider backs out. The hospital's solution is drug Robbie full of medications, so a big durational portion of the movie is Robbie being poked and prodded with different needles and injections of medications. All promise to relieve his epilepsy, but all have different, sporadic side effects. Some make Robbie drowsy others cause him to have tantrums around the house. The side effects build on each other and are making his condition worse. Lori gets even more frightened when a young girl who shared a room with Robbie dies of his same illness. She's fed up and points out to Dr. Melanie Abbasac (Allison Janney,)

"I bring my kid to you people for help, and all you do is make him sicker. You give him one drug, and he needs another drug to cure him of the first one. There must be something else that you can do. There's something wrong here. There's something really, really, really wrong."

The way that all aspects of the move come together make it really, painfully hard to watch, and it's hard for Lori too. So, she takes to reading and learns about a possible treatment for epilepsy that wouldn't involve more harsh medication called the Ketogenic Diet (high-fat, adequate-protein, low carbohydrate diet,) which is practiced only at John Hopkins Hospital for Children. However, at the time, the treatment is in its early stages, so Dr. Abbasac can't permit Robbie to travel for experimental treatment. This is blasphemy to Lori, so she books an appointment with the hospital anyway, taps into her intuition, and tries to sneak Robbie out of the hospital one night out of desperation. She gets far, but she doesn't succeed. When confronted about it the next morning, Dr. Abbasac sees Lori's pain but permits Robbie only to travel if his nurse and the family's doctor go along. They do.

Lori and Robbie make the flight, and within one week of the diet plan, his condition has improved boundlessly. One year later, he is back to his regular old, vibrant self. It took no medication, only a simple change in food. That still blows me away that after all that heartache the family went through, money spent, and canceled vacations, the solution seems so minor. Today, the ketogenic diet is quite popular. I know people who do it as a weight loss mechanism, so to think that it isn't that old and it has the potential to decrease the severity of epilepsy is eye-opening.

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This movie is important to me, which is why it's a shame I wasn't able to find it anywhere else except YouTube. I guess it has something to do with the fact that when I was five, I sat in a hospital bed, too, for a back surgery. Without harping on the details, I think now that I'm a bit older, watching that movie and seeing a child in that state of enfeeblement definitely puts into perspective for me how my parents must have felt at the time. I do remember it, but not enough to write about it in sufficient length. It's a wonder what I would be without it. This film is a true story, based on the director's, Jim Abraham's son, Charlie. The title is the oath doctors take in which they promise to act in the best interest of the patient, and first, do no harm.

As always, thank you for the entertainment, Meryl.