The Dharma Force

Orthopaedics

I just learned a new word Thursday. "Orthopaedics"

Orthopaedics is the medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation and prevention of injuries and diseases of your body's musculoskeletal system. This complex system includes your bones, joints, ligaments, tendons, muscles and nerves and allows you to move, work and be active.

I took my daughter to see an Pediatric Orthopaedic doctor on Thursday. She has a genetic condition that at both ends of her arm and leg bones there are bone spurs. According to the doctor, that was a pretty common condition. My wife has it, and she is just fine.

But my daughter has a problem on her left forearm. One of the two bones on her arm had stopped growing, or at least grew at a slower pace than the other bone. There was a gap between her hand and her shorter bone. As a result, the long bone grew bent.

It was such a shock for me to see the condition on the X-ray.

The resident who looked at the X-ray could not form an opinion on his own, and we had to wait for his boss, the real doctor to show up. That was the longest 15 minutes of my life!

The real doctor, Dr. Rab was a very nice doctor. He explained the condition and mentioned that there was a way to correct the condition. That will involve to cut off the head of the short bone that was not growing properly, and to take out a piece of her leg bone to connect to the end of the short bone.

But the problem is that the new bone will still be growing at a different rate from her other arm bone. So if we had done it now, they might need to repeat the procedure a few years later.

The good news was that her hand's function had not been affected by the deformity, so the doctor recommended us to wait, as long as possible, until she has fully grown. Then she might just need to have the procedure done only once.

I was so relieved that she did not need to have a surgery at the time.

But now, the reality sank in. My 6 year old daughter has a deformity in her arm. Her left arm will be forever shorter than her right arm. The weight of the realization was like a huge rock in my chest.

I remember the night she was born. I was with my wife, and the nurse took the baby to the nurse station because the incubation room was closed. I went out there every 5 minutes to see my baby girl. I was afraid she would be cold, hungry, wet or lonely. Every cry was like hers. So finally I moved her crib in with my wife. I looked at her the whole night, and I fed her the first bottle of formula.

I only wanted her to be happy. I did not care if she would be successful or famous, or well off. I just hoped and prayed that she would be health and happy, all through her life.

That was my only wish.

That wish, that hope shattered.

My daughter is a very nice and soft person. She has the typical happy-go-lucky mild temperament. When she was 3 years old and she went to a very good day-care center in the area. She got bit by a boy 12 inches shorter than her, multiple times within a month.

We argued with the director of the day-care center. Seeing nothing was being done, we finally pulled her out and put her in a different center.

In those days, I was so concerned about her, I went to the center during my lunch break and watched her playing in the yard. Usually she was alone. But she was not that concerned. She wrapped herself of a world of her own, and she walked to her own beat and tune.

I wanted for her to be like that forever.

But in my heart, I know that will not be so. She will grow up, she will taste the bitter taste of reality. She will know she is different. She will know she is unique. She will find her own path, and she will alone on that path. If she is lucky, she will find someone to share that path, and she will have a family, and her children will branch out from her path.

I just wished with my whole heart that day will come later, much later, when she is ready, when she is more than ready.

In a country where Asians were the minority of the minority, she had felt the stings of the outside world. She asked me once whether she was an American. I said, "Of course, dear. You were born here. Both your Mom and Dad are Americans." She said other kids said she was not, she was Chinese.

"You are both," I said, "You are a Chinese American."

But I am sure, that will just be the beginning. That is one of the reasons my wife and I take her to China every year. She is to see the other part of her heritage, to see people with the same skin color as her, to speak the same tongue as her grandparents.

Now, in one of these days in the future, I will have to explain to her why her left arm is so much different from the others!

I pray that I will find a country full of people with a shorter left arm before then.