In July, Ricky became worse again. An infection set in and his body had no defenses. He lay in the hospital for days hanging between life and death, but finally the antibiotics began to work and the fever broke. His own blood cells began building back.
We began making plans for school and the third grade. We didn’t know if Ricky could be in a regular class because of all the days he would miss. He might be always falling behind.
We decided to try it anyway. The teacher understood about Ricky and she explained to the class, especially about his loss of hair again and about the fragile condition of his neck. She also had a cot in the room so he could lie down when he needed to.
Things went pretty well until after Christmas. Oh, there were a couple of days when I sent Ricky to the bus and he didn’t actually get on. He decided to lie down behind our house instead. The first time this happened, I was frantic. I called the neighbors and we searched the whole area, thinking something terrible must have happened to him. It turned out he was afraid to go to school because the children had been teasing him. On the bus someone pulled his wig off and had thrown it around.
I had another talk with his teacher and the principal of the school. After that, everyone tried to make Ricky feel comfortable, but, of course, he knew he was different.
Toward the end of January, we noticed Ricky was holding his head with both hands, like he was trying to keep it from falling off. Even when he was eating, he would take the food and then his hand would go right back to his forehead.
When Dr. Serota saw Ricky this time, he called Stanford Children’s Hospital and made arrangements for Ricky to be admitted the next day. By this time he was in almost constant pain.
We took the first of many three- to four-hour-long ambulance rides from Sacramento to Palo Alto. The kids at the hospital thought it was great that Ricky came in an Air Force ambulance, but I was just glad to get there and begin on some treatment of relief for him.
Chapter 11 to follow
