I could learn a thing or two from my daughter

The 21 hours in between 10 a.m. on Tuesday September 8 and 7 a.m on Wednesday September 9 were the darkest hours of my life. My wife, Leigh, had taken our then 1 year-old daughter, Eleanor, in to the pediatrician's office that morning because of a slight fever and what appeared to be a rash. The threat level rose to orange when the pediatrician suggested Eleanor's blood be tested. DEFCON 2 was reached when doctor called back with the results but wouldn't tell Leigh anything specific other than we had a room waiting on us at Children's Mercy Hospital--pack a bag and get there as fast as you can. These are words no parent thinks they will ever hear. We clung to a dissipating hope that this was just Eleanor's immune system overreacting to a minor infection she had a week prior.

The strange new surroundings were probably enough to prevent Eleanor, an already touchy sleeper, from reaching dreamland; the seemingly constant interruptions to check her vitals and the struggle to place an IV sealed the deal. This is not to mention the 10,000 lb. metaphorical weight of the question "Why are we here?" and all its possible answers. The twin mattress Leigh and I had to share didn't help either.

That weight finally dropped on us at 7 in the morning, only that weight turned out to be a hydrogen bomb. Leukemia. Specifically, acute lymphoblastic leukemia. But, none of those words really matter. We know what this is. This is cancer and cancer=death.

Regrettably, shamefully, my first thoughts: "She's gone. We celebrated her goddamn first birthday three weeks ago and you better have enjoyed it because it's the last one. She's gone."

And then from the doctor's next words, hope. "We cure 85% of kids with this disease. Most of my patients stop seeing me because they get too old." And right then ended any negative thought that wasn't immediately followed by a new mantra--"This is what we must do. Once we get through this, it will work out."

We did what we had to do, and it looks like it will work out. We are almost done with what are supposed to be the hard parts of this journey. We couldn't have been luckier or more grateful that things have progressed the way they have since Eleanor's diagnosis back on September 9. It could have gone differently.

Since that moment, that introduction of hope, every single day has been a revelation to me of Eleanor's indomitable character and strength. As I sat at the dinner table tonight watching her eat, I was suddenly overcome with emotion. Every bad thing she had to endure over the past 8 months came back and hit me all at once--every needle stick, every milliliter of blood drawn, every day spent in a hospital, every spinal tap, every bout of nausea, weakness, and pain caused by every dose of every drug necessarily given to poison her just enough--all of it. There she sat, happily chowing down on her favorite meal of whole wheat penne and Prego and chatting up a storm. And the reason for this wave of emotion finally dawned on me--she's been this happy through all but the very worst of her treatment.

Life's big lessons can come from all walks: philosophers, scientists, religious figures, educators...the list goes on. Today, mine came from a 20 month-old girl fighting leukemia who just happens to be my daughter.

The smartest person in the world is the one who knows the limits of his own knowledge

We were called to what was the best fire of my short career the other night. It was a great experience, and, when I sit back and think about it for a while, it's amazing how much I learned from that one incident. One could spend 16 weeks or 160 weeks in the academy, but there's no teacher like the real thing. That's not a knock on training--I think we should train more than we do...a lot more. I just don't think it's possible to create the same environment in a training situation that exists at a real incident. But, that's a tangent I don't want to explore right now.

The real point of this drivel was my realization of how much I don't know. It's a huge wake-up call. I now know that I've been skating by. It's pretty easy to sit around and get lulled into thinking you know everything when you work at a station like mine--one of the highest call volumes in the department but a low occurrence of fire, especially first-in fire. Then, I get one of those fires, and I end up feeling like I'm bumbling around while all the people who know what they are doing act quickly and with purpose. They intuit things that I'd actually have to see happening. I can bury my head in the books, and I will, but there's a lot of knowledge that doesn't lie within those books. I sure hope that knowledge comes with experience. If it's instead an innate knowledge, I might as well find another vocation.

So, I'll reopen the books, but, I'll also hope for more fire (sorry, property owners) and take every bit of knowledge I can from both. On a side note, it was pretty fulfilling to finally have a "good" fire. It makes you feel a little less like a social worker in a KCFD uniform and more like a firefighter.