“Steve, you have to do something!”
The urgency in my Mom’s voice was clear. Our doctor was trying to figure out why my little boy was not getting better, treating one symptom after the other without understanding why he was sick and getting sicker.
We were living in Stockholm, Wisconsin at the time. I was a pastor at Sabylund Lutheran Church. While the hospital setting was unfamiliar to me, my Mom was right at home. She’d been an Emergency Room RN for years. But now, something like panic was shaking her foundation. Only a parent could step in, and it was up to me.
I found our doctor and told him we wanted a pediatrician to check and treat our 9-month old patient. Within minutes Dr. Schulenberg was in the room, giving baby Thomas a quick once over and ordering the tools to do a spinal tap.
It was what he feared: spinal meningitis. Hoping it was bacterial, he ordered a cocktail of three antibiotics and sent him to what served as Intensive Care in this small rural hospital.
I had done something, alright, but was it soon enough?
All night Thomas’ Mom and I paced back and forth from waiting room to hospital crib, looking for signs of hope, signs of prayers being heard.
Finally, around 3:00 am, we entered his room to find his special duty nurse less grim. “I think he’s getting better; the medicine is beginning to work,” she said. “His vitals are improving. But he’s a very sick little boy.”
Long story short, it was bacterial spinal meningitis, the antibiotics did their job, and 14 days later, we were able to take him home. Home to his parsonage crib where we had found him in distress that Sunday before Christmas 1976. Of all the scenarios of after-effects and complications, Thomas was ok. Only a scar on the top of his forehead remained of the whole episode, left from the IV needles that had saved his life.
Trauma leaves scars in its wake and sometimes lessons. Besides the mark on his forehead, the experience at the hospital taught his grandmother something about what Thomas was to become. Having witnessed this she became convinced this little guy had a destiny, and she told me so, and often. “He’s destined for something great. His life was spared for a purpose,” is how she interpreted it.
Grandma Nelson is gone. She passed away in 1999. But she lived long enough to witness the beginning of Thomas’ career as a public servant committed to making the world a better place for all people. Grandma and Grandpa believed that the everyday folk who surrounded us in our community and church and work deserved leaders who were looking out for them. They saw in their grandson someone who would fight for the good as hard as he fought for his own life on his first Christmas.
Thomas, your family carries the torch for you in our generation, too. We know hundreds of you do, too. But he can’t do it without all of us. Supporters, we need your time, talent and treasure. Can you think of a better person or cause?
Peace!
Sincerely,
Steve, Dad, and if you read my diploma, The Rev. Dr. Steven M. Nelson
