Have you ever noticed how nearly every family has an against-all-medical-odds story? As in, “My uncle’s fingertip just grew back.”
“What do you mean it grew back?”
“His fingertip. He sliced it off with a saw, but it grew back.”
“The skin grew back?”
“No, the fingertip.”
Right. The fingertip. The bone and skin. Because the uncle has some of the regenerative capabilities of a lizard.
My mother was born at a naval base in Cuba. For the first 15 months of her life, she vomited back up most of what she ate. Eventually doctors discovered a tumor the size of a grapefruit in her uterus. (We used to love to say that aloud when we were kids. A tumor the size of a grapefruit!)
And then, in her twenties, she became engaged to a yankee minister, and they decided to go on the mission field. During a routine medical test, doctors discovered my mother had lupus. No mission field for her. No kids. No marriage. The engagement broke. And then, they reconsidered. Nevermind mission work, they could go into the ministry stateside. Plenty of work to do here as well. And if kids didn’t happen, they didn’t happen. Within five years, my mother’s lupus had become inactive. It shows up on tests, but it’s dormant. She married that yankee minister, and they had two kids, and they’ve traveled all over Europe and the U.S.
It’s just one of those things. Just one of those stories.
