Thirty-six years ago, somewhere in Seoul, Korea, a woman gave birth to a baby boy, but something was very wrong. When he was born, the middle of his back was open. Nerves and his spinal column were sticking out, not even connected. He had Myelomeningocele, also known as open spina bifida. (Spina bifida is a birth defect where there is incomplete closing of the backbone and membranes around the spinal cord.)
I cannot begin to imagine how frightened his mother must have been. But, she loved her baby so much that she took him to a hospital and abandoned him there; rather than just leaving him to die. I believe she must have said a prayer that he would somehow be loved by someone able to care for him.
At the hospital doctors performed surgery to close his back (and, they did a beautiful job). But still his spinal column was unable to function properly.
So often we take our bodies and how they function for granted, but few of us realize that we circulate quite a bit of spinal fluid around our bodies each day through our spinal column. If that spinal column is too damaged, as it was for this baby, it creates an area similar to a damn and spinal fluid backs up. Now, for those of you out there that are professional medical people, please know I understand I am not explaining this in “medical speak”. I am using what I call “Mommy speak”.
Okay, his spinal column is blocked, now what? Well, it has to accumulate somewhere and the brain is the winner! But, for the baby this presents a new problem. His head begins to swell and that fluid starts squeezing his brain. Now this is “new person,” not “one of us been around the block a few times people”, and his brain are still quite pliable. So that spinal fluid squishes and squeezes his brain until there is just a thin layer of brain tissue around the edge, but does that spinal fluid care? Nope! It just keeps coming and the baby’s head keeps swelling and his brain keeps getting squeezed.
Now in 1981 South Korea does not have access to a ventriculoperitoneal shunt which moves fluid from the ventricles of the brain to the abdominal cavity, where it could circulate again, so the baby’s head continues to grow and grow and grow.
The hospital must have liked this baby… at least I choose to believe they did. They name him Min Chul Kim. I am told by a lovely lady from Korean that his name means something like “deep still lake”. So this baby lies in this hospital in South Korea unable to receive the medical care he so desperately needs. This is how, on January 14, 1981, our Joshua Isaac started his life…
