Saturday, December 19, 1998

Christmas symbolizes holiness of child's life

By DAVID WATERS

Scripps Howard News Service

On the night before Christmas, Donna Mathis will help her three sons bake chocolate chip cookies for Santa.

The boys will put the cookies by the fireplace. Then Donna and her husband, Tom, will sit under the tree and watch their boys, Zane, John and Jack, unwrap one gift apiece.

Before bedtime, Donna will tell her boys a Christmas story.

It's the story of a father's love, a mother's faith and the gift of a child.

She knows the details of the story by heart.

But she began to get a glimpse of the depth of the story four Christmases ago.

On Christmas Day 1994, Donna was pregnant with twins.

Five days later, John and Jack Mathis were delivered in an emergency C-section at the Regional Medical Center at Memphis.

God gives each mother all the love each child will need. Donna Mathis got a double dose that day.

John's body came out perfect.

Jack's parts were mixed up.

His stomach didn't connect to his esophagus.

His heart was on the wrong side, and it didn't work properly.

He had two left lungs and a damaged diaphragm.

Newborn John went home with his family.

Newborn Jack moved across the street from the delivery room at The Med to intensive care at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center.

For the next year, Jack lived in a hospital bed flat on his back.

A ventilator breathed for him.

A feeding tube nourished him.

He didn't learn to suck. He couldn't pick up his head.

Donna and Tom kept their jobs and their home in rural West Tennessee to keep their household functioning for Zane and John and to keep their insurance for Jack.

Several times a week, Donna drove the 160-mile round trip from Dyersburg to Memphis. She worked two jobs to help pay medical bills.

As Jack's troubles mounted, she held her baby's hand and prayed.

Surgeons repaired Jack's stomach, then his heart, then his diaphragm and duodenum.

He lay still so long his skull fused together too soon. Surgeons had to crack open his head to give his brain room to grow.

His eyes floated and had to be fixed.

Day after day, doctors told Donna what they believed: Jack's brain would never be larger than a walnut. He never would lift his head. He never would crawl, or walk, or run.

If he lived, that is.

Jack's mother believed otherwise.

"I always prayed he'd get better, and he always did," says Donna. "I always saw Jack walking and running. I never thought he wouldn't."

Donna's faith held.

Jack is home now with his brothers.

He breathes on his own.

He still has a feeding tube. He could eat, he just hasn't quite figured out how.

Once Jack learned to pick up his head, he rarely put it down. He walked before he crawled. He's smaller than his twin but just as rambunctious.

Jack loves to play outside with his brothers, and to run.

The other day, he ran right onto a side street next to the house. He didn't hear the truck or the horn or his parents' screams. The truck stopped with a yard to spare.

Ironically, doctors think Jack's ears were one of his few working parts at birth.

They aren't sure what damaged Jack's inner ear, but after so many operations, medications, infections and fevers, they aren't surprised he's deaf.

"My brother can't hear, yet," Zane will tell people.

No, not yet.

Jack's mother believes he will.

Jack is a candidate for a cochlear implant, an expensive electronic device that would restore his hearing. It costs about $25,000.

That's one problem. But a Memphis clinic has offered to donate half the cost.

Insurance is another problem.

Jack's coverage on his mother's policy reached the $1 million limit while he was in ICU.

Earlier this year, Jack's care was about to reach a second $1 million limit, this time on his father's policy. The family switched to an HMO.

The HMO doesn't cover cochlear implants.

"Whatever it takes, we'll find a way," says Donna, who gladly would endure a thousand more sleepless nights to give her Jack one fewer silent night.

"Jack has been through so much, and he has such a wonderful spirit. Of all my boys, he has the best disposition.

"I just know that one day, I'll call out his name, and he'll turn around and smile, and say, 'Yes, Mama.' "

On Christmas Eve, Donna will sit under the tree with her husband and their three most precious gifts.

She will watch each of her boys unwrap one gift apiece.

Then she will tell them a story.

Jack won't be able to hear the details.

But Donna believes her youngest son already has begun to sense its depth.

It's the story of a father's love, a mother's faith and the gift of a child.

(David Waters may be reached by e-mail at waters@gomemphis.com or by mail at The Commercial Appeal, P.O. Box 334, Memphis, TN 38101.)