Anyone who has ever spent significant time with Callen has surely experienced one of his incredible monologues. Much to his delight, our amusement, and the frustration of anyone trying to get a word in edgewise (i.e. Olivia), he will deliver a running narrative on everything – and I do mean everything! – that is running through his head (and body). His is an express line from mouth to brain, sans filter, as only a 4 year-old can do… or at least do and get away with!
His intended audience is generally himself- a future politician, perhaps? - but anyone within earshot of his perpetual “outside voice” is treated to a soliloquy of the inner workings of a child’s mind. From the sweet (“I love you more than I love fresh underwear.”) to the savory (“My feet smell like pancake batter!”), if he is thinking it or doing it, he is talking about it!
Recently, however, his rhetoric has morphed from declarations to inquisitions. It’s like the “why?” phase all over again – only this time it’s on steroids! “What do scorpions eat? How much does a dump truck weigh? Why do our feet match the size of our body? How many summers will there be? Why is milk white? If I were a bug do you think I’d be a worm? How can birds walk on cactuses?” And so it goes: as quickly as they come into his mind they come out of his mouth. I try to answer as often and honestly as I’m able, although sometimes there’s neither time for nor interest in an actual response. And other times, no answer is sufficient. This was surely one of those moments.
“What the @#*&, Mom?”
Callen, who was in between rounds of retching, got off the sofa, walked into the kitchen, spoke these words to me, and then quietly returned to his perch on the couch.
I paused to consider my response, not entirely sure if this fell into the question or statement category. I mean, it started with a question word, but it ended with an explicative - which definitely seemed a bit more declarative in nature.
Oh, yes, and then there was the little matter of that word…
Cancer has done many things to us in the past eight months, not the least of which has been to expand our vocabularies. At a time when Callen should be learning colors, seasons, sight words and cute holiday songs, he has acquired an understanding of a lexicon far beyond his years and created his own medical jargon - translating what is done and said to him into his own pediatric parlance. He understands that “peeing pink lemonade” after Adriamycin is a novelty, but doing the same after Cyclophosphamide is an emergency; that he needs the “big squirt” of Bactrim twice daily on weekends, but the “little squirt” of Zofran only when he is nauseated; that Colace is his “poop jelly bean” but 6-mercaptopurine is his “leukemia bean”; and that anything he eyes suspiciously as a “magic drink” surely has been laced with something other than Nestles Quick™.
So for as creative and unique a vernacular as he has constructed, it was surprising that Callen had reduced this, his 193rd day of treatment, into such a common one liner. In fact, this surprised me even more than his use of that word!
But how could I expect him to “make nice” the naughty words that only hours before had been so carelessly spoken in his presence? The profanities had spilled from the doctor’s mouth without warning, and seemingly without provocation: Five-year survival rates…Risks of relapse… Subsequent blood cancers…Future solid tumors... Uncertain organ damage… Possible heart failure... Learning disabilities... Developmental delays... Behavioral side effects...
If ever a situation called for a child to don the proverbial earmuffs and yell LA!-LA!-LA!-LA!-LA! while an adult conversation took place, this was surely it! But as she let loose with that string of obscenities, there we all sat – Callen included - an unwilling audience stunned into silence by her casual and comfortable use of such explicit language.
As I brought myself back to the moment at hand, I wondered if I could (or even should) in good conscience reprimand him for his choice words. After all, how many times during the doctor’s recitation had the very same question Callen posed to me now erupted in my own mind? I had to consider the possibility that I had accidentally said one of my thought bubbles aloud…
In the end, and for the second time that day, I uncharacteristically and uncomfortably held my tongue. Only this time my silence was a conscious - and correct - response. As I joined Callen on the couch, wanting to be within earshot of whatever was to follow, he crawled onto my lap, buried his head in my chest, and began to sob uncontrollably.
No, Callen’s bomb hadn’t been the most inappropriate or destructive thing dropped that afternoon - not by a long shot. It wasn’t the most shocking or disturbing or distressing. He wasn’t the one who should have known better, and his wasn’t the mouth that needed washing out with soap. As his mother I had given my consent to the poisoning of his body that day, but not his mind or spirit. And while there were medications aplenty to mitigate the consequences of the former, as I held him tight I was left to question whether I could ever effectively or entirely remedy the latter.
