"One of these sweet children walking onto campus their freshmen year
may never catch it but yours could be the one," Paige Kach of Carmel,
N. Y., was quoted after her son fell ill at Rhode Island's Salve Regina
University diagnosed with having meningococcal meningitis.
Meningococcal meningitis is bacterial meningitis, while rare, can
sicken and kill with terrifying swiftness, and college freshmen who
live in dormitories are one of the prime targets. With Paige's
son John, it started like a mere stomach bug; John felt fine one day,
but spent the next day throwing up. By the end of the day, the
19-year-old college freshman was in a coma; spent almost four months in
the hospital and survived only after doctors amputated one foot and all
his fingers and toes. Patrick Kepferle a freshman at Towson
University in Maryland wasn't so lucky. He died less than 24
hours after the first symptom.
Only about 3000 Americans a year get this contagious bacterial
infection of membranes around the brain and spinal cord. About
300 die. Another 450, like John Kach, survive with some form of
permanent disability: lost limbs, deafness or mental retardation.
According to Dr. Nancy Rosenstein of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, meningococcal meningitis is one of the few remaining
infectious diseases in the United States where you can take someone who
is perfectly healthy one day and they can be dead in 24 to 48
hours. If that doesn't scare you, I'm not sure what will.
So why am I emphasizing this now? Because many times men feel
we're invincible. But how do you fix an amputated foot, or replace
fingers and toes? Have do you bring someone back? You
don't. But what if a simple vaccination was all it took to make sure
this did not happen to your son or daughter, would you make sure it was
done? I think so.
Many times, as fathers, we cannot be sure what our children will
encounter when they are away from home. The best we can attempt
is vaccinate them as best we can with good home grown ideas that kept
us healthy and out of harm's way. We must not allow ourselves to
be lulled to sleep thinking nothing like this can happen in our home,
or to our kids.
Take my sons for instance. I love them dearly. I scold them
affectionately. And I'm on their case. Not as much as some
parents might be, but these are my kids. No one knows them like I
do, except maybe their mom. I know who they are, because I know
who I am. But sometimes I forget. Forget what's it's like
to be a kid. Forget what it's like to have a dad that really
cares to teach his son how to become a man. I'm the one who
teaches them how to ‘treat girls,' by how I treat their mom. I'm
the one who teaches them about drugs, by not using them. I'm the
one they learn contrition from, because when I'm wrong, I admit I'm
wrong.
Recently, on a family trip, I'd promised my older son he and I were
going to do something together. Mom chirped in that he'd not been
in his best state of mind "right at a moment" I was ticked at
him. So I reneged on my promise. He sucked it up...like a
man. Didn't complain, didn't say he was sorry. Just
accepted it.
Realizing what a child I'd been, I took my wife for a walk. I
told her how stupid I'd been. How I'd done what I'd done out of
meanness. It was a hard thing for me to accept about myself, but
it was the truth. I told her I'd promised the boy something and
used her to get out of it. It wasn't fair, I told her.
Wives, when their husbands admit to this kind of stupidity, are
compelled to agree. They commiserate a bit, then ask the
proverbial "Why?" question, like I'd know. But I knew I had to
set it right with my son. So, he'd learned dad can apologize, and
keep promises. We did what I'd promised we'd do, and life went on.
He has all his fingers, toes and both of his feet. There are some
kids not so lucky. So if you ever get hit with the urge to
hurt...remember what it's like to be hurt. Watch your kids.
Keep in touch. Teach them how to forgive. That's one disease even
the Centers for Disease Control cannot contain.
Archie Wortham lives with his wife, Suzan of 23 years, and their two
sons Myles (12), and Jeremy (16) in Universal City, Texas, a suburb of
San Antonio. Retired from the military in 1996, for nine years he wrote
a dad's column originally called "Jeremy's Dad," then called
"Jeremyles' Dad," named after both his sons. He now writes a column in
San Antonio called "Men 2 Fathers." Archie also maintains the Fatherhood site,
you may contact him by email at
