The Journey Begins

by Dan Eaton

  There was a piece of paper and scissors sitting on the coffee table from when I had been using them earlier for my homework. She took the paper, folded it in half and cut a small circle. She unfolded the paper and said, "Pretend this piece of paper is a diaphragm and that hole I cut is the hernia. The hole isn't that large and babies don't use their lungs until after they’re born so the baby will develop fine and after it's born the doctors can operate and seal up the hernia."

  I looked at the paper and looked at my mom and I still didn't see what the big deal was about. "Mom, so you had a hole and they patched you. That was a long time ago, so why would the NASA doctors be worried."

  She gave me a hug and said, "Bryce, they aren't worried. They're just concerned because I'm different. Let me finish my story". She took up the paper again and started cutting only this time the hole was larger, much larger. When she was done there was a thin border running along the edge of the sheet and nothing in the middle. She said" the problem is CDH doesn't come in just one size. There can be a small hole and it's not that serious. But the hole can be larger and the bigger the hole, the more serious it is for the baby. As the hole gets bigger the diaphragm has a harder time doing both its jobs. For a baby in the womb, the diaphragm's real job is to keep the space the lungs will develop in separate from the other organs like the heart. If the hole is too large those other organs intrude into the space where the lungs are supposed to be and the lungs don't develop right, sometimes they don't develop at all.

  I looked at my mom. I looked at that hole in the paper. I heard my voice quivering as I put two and two together and asked my mom what happened to the babies with the larger holes. She gathered me up in her arms and said "Now days, they can detect the problem and treat the issue far earlier in the pregnancy so babies aren't born with CDH anymore, at least in any country with a decent medical system. But back when Grandma and Grandpa were sitting in the doctor's office that wasn't true. Back then how to treat CDH was poorly understood. The doctor told them that I had a severe case of CDH, so severe that any treatment would be futile. They listened in shock as the doctor told them it would be 'ethically optional' for them to attempt treatment. They told them that I would be born, but then I would die and there was nothing they could really do about it."

  I'm thirteen. I play sports, play rough and tumble with my friends, get knocked down, but get back up and keep going. I am not a crybaby. But hearing the words my mom was saying and looking at that stupid piece of paper with the huge hole in it all of a sudden I was bawling like a little kid. She held me until I settled down and I was finally able to stammer out, "Why aren't you dead."

  She gave me a smile and said, “Your Grandma and Grandpa left the doctor's office feeling like they had been beaten with a baseball bat and then someone turned the sun out. They prayed together and decided that God helps those best that help themselves so Grandma sat down at the computer and started researching this monster called CDH. Eventually she found a pediatric surgeon down in Florida who understood how to treat CDH babies.”

  “I was born in Florida and spent the first three months of my life there. Great Grandma and Grandpa had taken care of my brother Bob back home while Grandma and Grandpa spent all their time at the hospital or resting at the local Ronald McDonald House.” Mom went to the closet and dug out an old album. There was a picture I had never seen of a very young looking Grandma and Grandpa standing at the side of a huge group of machines. Mom pointed to this tiny bundle in the middle of the machines and said, "That's me when I was just one week old." Mom said the machine was an ECMO machine and it did most of her breathing for the first month or so. I looked up ECMO later and it stands for Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation. No wonder they call it ECMO. Man, those doctors like their big butt words.

  Mom decided we needed a little snack and headed off to the kitchen for a minute. That gave me time to get myself back together and think about what Mom had told me. The most important take away was my Mom wasn't dead. I knew that in my head all along, but it was a good thing to keep telling myself. But Mom still hadn't answered why the doctors at NASA were concerned. Was there a chance that because of how she was born something could happen to her on the trip to the Moon? I always thought of this trip as just a humongous adventure, but if it was going to put my mom at risk I wasn't going to have anything more to do with it. Mom walked back in from the kitchen about then with a plate of snacks and a couple of sodas. There were some crackers, slices of cheddar cheese, hard salami, some homemade pickled cauliflower and pickled okra spears that I loved. I told you my mom had a green thumb in the garden didn't I?

  After thinking things through and stuffing myself with the snacks I asked Mom the question at the top of my list, "Is going on this trip going to cause you problems?"

  Mom gave a little laugh and a smile and told me, "No Bryce, I'm really okay. What the doctors are concerned about is my physiology is a little different than what is considered normal. My heart's not quite physically in the right place along with a bunch of other small oddities due to the CDH. It was worse when I was little and my mom had to be very careful taking me to a new doctor because they'd look at some reading from me and freak out because the readings weren’t right for a normal kid. They’d want to treat me for whatever they thought the reading was telling them was wrong with me until grandma could get them calmed down. What the doctors back then figured out was that I had my own physiology which is just a bit different than everyone else. Once a doctor knew and understood that they knew how to take care of me. Now days, other than things like where my heart is I'm pretty normal. I expect what will happen is that the NASA docs will come to the same conclusion. They'll probably want to run me through a whole series of extra tests just to baseline things and make sure they understand my physiology completely, but at the end of the day I don't think they'll have a problem with me going. “

  I felt a lot better and then Mom spent some time with me looking thru the old album. Immediately after she was born the surgeon had operated on her and repaired her diaphragm. Then they stuck her on the ECMO machine for a month to give her lungs more time to grow. They wouldn't develop normally, but they would grow enough to let her get off the ECMO after 30 days. There were more pictures of mom as a tiny baby in the hospital. Mom had some funny patches of skin on the right side of her neck that I had noticed but never asked her why they were there. Looking at the pictures I could see there had been tubes attached to her there that hooked into the ECMO machine. But it wasn't all scary hospital pictures. They eventually went home from the hospital and the pictures showed a bigger baby wearing an oxygen tube. Then there were pictures of her at family events, each one showing her a little older. Finally, there were pictures of her without the oxygen tube. She just looked like a normal kid, although mom said she still had problems that sent her to the hospital occasionally. Eventually the photo album just showed a little girl with nothing remarkable about her other than she would grow up to be my mom. Things like riding a bike and girl scouts and 4H. That's where mom's interest in plants started showing up. Finally, there was a section showing her in high school running on the track and cross-country teams. Who would have thought it from how she started out?

  I got home from school on the fourteenth and ran out to get the mail. We had mail, but there wasn’t anything from NASA. I knew I was being silly since they had just made the decision today, but it just felt wrong not to check the mail. Dad came home an hour later and tossed the lasagna Mom had prepared last night in the oven. Mom was running a little late, so by the time the lasagna was nice and bubbly I had the table set and we were ready to eat. We all sat down to eat and Mom asked me how my day at school had been.

  “It was… long,” I said. “I kept thinking about the selection being made today and wondering if we were picked. I guess maybe we’ll find out tomorrow.” Mom looked at Dad and asked him how his day had been.

  “Oh,” he said. “The morning was long because I kept thinking about the selection
being made today and wondering if we were picked. Then after lunch the afternoon was long because I got a call from Dr. Martin and I had to wait until we were all together to share the news.”

  It took me a couple of seconds to remember that Dr. Martin was in charge of the selection process. She must have called Dad to tell him whether we were selected or not. I was thinking by the huge grin on Dad’s face that we had made it, but Mom wasn’t playing any games.

  She slugged Dad in the arm and said, “Spill the beans NOW.” Dad took pity on us and said the three words I’d been waiting to hear, “We made it!”

  The final selection had been our family, the Cherneski, Dumas, Patel, Schubeler, and Stephenson families. Three boys, three girls. NASA wanted to make the official announcement at a news conference Friday and they wanted all of the families present for the event so we needed to fly back to Houston on Friday morning. We’d go from the airport directly to the Johnson Space Center. Once there, we’d have a meeting with Dr. Martin, get to meet the other families, and then appear together for the announcement press conference. Dad said we’d be back home Friday night but didn’t know the exact timing of things yet.

  Friday morning rolled around and we set off early for Lambert on the first leg of our journey to Houston. This trip, everything seemed to go quicker and by 10.00 am we were rolling up to the JSC gates. The guard at the gate directed us to Building One where Dr. Martin would greet us. One of Dr. Martin’s assistants met us in the lobby and escorted us to a large conference room. With the exception of the Patels, all the other families were there already. The assistant made introductions for everyone and told us to please help ourselves to the snacks and drinks at the back of the room while we waited for the Patels to show up. She said she had spoken with them and they should be arriving within the next thirty minutes. Once all the families were present, Dr. Martin would join us and tell us what we needed to know for the day.

  I was happy when we walked in the room. The selection process had been kind to me multiple ways because sitting there across the conference room table was the blond girl I had noticed back in November. Her name was Nina Schubeler and she looked just as good now as she had back then. I met the other kids too. There was Willie Stephenson, a black kid with his hair cropped short, dark, intelligent eyes, and an ample friendly smile. I learned later that day that he was also an avid Gogo player so we exchanged contact info and I was looking forward to playing Gogo with him. The other guy was Adam Dumas. Adam looked Latino with short dark hair and a confident look in his eyes. The other kids and I were to learn the hard way later on that the confident look on Adam’s face was usually because he’d played some practical joke on you. It was hard not to like him, though, he was very friendly and outgoing.

  The other girl present when I arrived was Myra Cherneski. She was a brunette with hazel eyes and shoulder length hair. She was cute, with the good looks people normally associated with the girl next door. I found later that she was the one that was always looking out for us, had a kind word when we were down or was cheering us on when we had a victory. She would eventually become one of my best friends. My parents wandered off and started up conversations with the other parents.

  Myra gave me a smile and said, “Hi, I’m Myra.”

  I smiled back and said, “Hi Myra, I’m Bryce.”

  I would have loved to go strike up a conversation with Nina but I really had no clue what to say and Myra was so easy to talk to. We talked for a while and then Willie walked over and joined us. We had just gotten through the introductions when the Patel family walked in the door of the conference room.

  Ananyu Patel was cute. She was of Indian heritage with long wavy dark hair and a friendly face that was quick to smile. Myra and Nina had chosen jeans and a shirt to wear today but Ananyu was wearing a long flowing dress and sandals. Watching throughout that first day I was struck by how graceful she was. She also had a great sense of humor, which I appreciated.

  Looking at us kids, I had to wonder about NASA’s reasons for choosing us. I don’t mean to brag, but all of us kids were what you would call photogenic. The girls were all pretty and we guys were all handsome. I could understand not having anyone who was overweight in the group due to the physical demands that would be placed on us but it seemed weird to me that in a group of six kids there wasn’t at least one of us that could be described as plain.

  Dr. Martin swept into the room then and said, “Good morning everyone. Welcome back to Houston and congratulations on being selected. Today, we will be having a press conference to announce the selection of your families for this mission. I’ll be handling the actual announcement and then after the announcement is made I will handle the general questions about the mission the press will have. After that, the press will be free to ask you questions directly. I would suggest that each family choose a spokesman to answer the questions.” Since we had a couple of hours to go before the press conference she gave us all handouts on how to comfortably deal with questions from the press. The handout included typical questions we might see along with possible answers to the questions. She assured us that if anyone got into trouble she would be nearby to help us out.

  After we all had time to go through the handout she pulled us kids into a group and said, “You kids are going to be the focus of many of the questions the press will have. There’s going to be a lot of attention on you at first but things will die down as time goes on. Do all of you feel confident enough to talk to the press? It’s okay if you don’t. I’ll step in and handle things if anyone is uncomfortable. I just need to know who wants me to go to bat for them. Also, if anyone has a moment of panic, just let your parents handle the question and if they panic, then I will field the question.” Dr. Martin then had us all pose for photographs. The photographer first had us pose as one group, then some shots of just us kids, and finally shots of each family. That way they had photos of us available for the press.

  The press conference went well. Dr. Martin did her bit and then she turned the press loose on us. The only tough question was when one of the reporters asked Willie’s mom how she felt as a mother potentially exposing her son to deadly situations that might occur either on our way or during our stay on the Moon.

  She said, “There are no guarantees in life and either my son or husband could be lost to me if we stayed behind on Earth. We’ll face things as a family and if something bad does happen, I will take comfort in knowing we had all been given an extraordinary chance to participate in Mankind’s exploration of the Universe and to know God’s works better. I’ll find comfort in my faith in God as I always have.”

  It was a pretty good answer and I could see that Dr. Martin was happy with how Mrs. Stephenson had handled the question.

  We headed back to the airport after the press conference was over. Dr. Martin’s office was handling all press requests, so things didn’t get too crazy for us. None of the families wanted the publicity of being on the national news so Dr. Martin got to handle that. She did encourage us to speak with our local news outfits as long as we followed the suggestions she had provided us. We got to be on several of the local news shows and after a couple of weeks everybody forgot about it and we were able to get life back to normal.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  On becoming Luni327

  Dad got an email in late April from Dr. Martin at JSC asking us to schedule our training and medical checkup visit to Houston. Once the hubbub of getting selected was over, activity with NASA had died down since we were ‘normal’ people and didn’t need the specialized training an astronaut or space rated worker would require. This trip would be the last to Houston and the following trip would be to which ever launch center, we were selected for when we were actually leaving Earth.

  We had a mild winter so with no snow days to make up my last day of school was May 22. Dad scheduled us for the following Monday and Tuesday with us coming back Wednesday.

  Dad said, “Let’s make a little holiday of it. We can fly down on Saturday a
nd take in some local sights. This will be our third visit to Houston and we really haven’t explored the city much.”

  May flew by and I found myself leaving school for the last time. Even without the Moon trip I wouldn’t be coming back to this school since I was moving on to high school. On the one hand it was a little sad, but on the other, well, it was summer vacation no matter what happened so life was good.

  We got up the next morning and set off for Lambert. The trip went well and by noon we were checking into the Marriott Courtyard. Mom said. “How about we try visiting Galveston to see some sites and maybe have dinner there. It’s not that far away.”

  That was a great beginning to our vacation and we managed to pack in a lot of fun on Sunday before Monday morning came around and we had to meet with Dr. Martin. When the time came, Dr. Martin met with us briefly and then handed us off to the medical team. The three of us were led off separately and I got to meet Dr. Hall and Nurse Olds. They gave me a complete physical and checked me over from head to toe.