#ntsad

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Easy Questions

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The Flash and My Sophie’s Choice

I’m a big superhero fan. I was essentially raised by comic books.  My moral code came from the 1970s version of the Justice League and its members. To this day comic books, and the heroic world, are a part of my life.  

Last night Erika, Gavin, and I were watching the season finale of the the Flash T.V. show.  In the episode the Flash has an opportunity to travel back in time and stop his mother from being murdered. Ultimately Flash chooses instead to let his dying mother know that he, her son, turns out well.  

As a sci-fi fan, I’ve thought about time travel a lot.  I love time travel movies and finding the time paradoxes within the plot lines.  I’m sure many people think about the things they would do, if time travel were possible; killing Hitler, playing the lottery, asking that girl out…

 After my daughter died, I thought about time travel relentlessly.  I would go back in time and warn myself to stop having children after my son was born.  I would prevent Lila from ever being born.  I would prevent her life filled with suffering and premature death.  I still think about going back in time, but now it’s my Sophie’s choice.

In the movie Sophie’s Choice, Sophie plays a mother of two children during World War II.  The Nazis force Sophie to pick which of her two children goes to the death camp and which of her children stays with her.  It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the movie, so I may have the detail wrong, but she did have to make a horrific choice. The choice haunts Sophie for the rest of her life.  How could it not?

If time travel were possible, I’d have to choose between preventing Lila’s life of suffering or having Gavin, my 3rd child.  Thinking about having to choose one or the other gives me a headache and makes me slightly nauseous.  Yet it’s something that I think about frequently.

So watching the Flash reminds me again to remind you, and those you love, to ask your doctor, OBGYN, or genetic counselor about preconception genetic counseling.  No one should have to make, or even contemplate, his/her own Sophie’s Choice.

[yadiddle]

Goodnight, Brook baby, goodnight goodnight goodnight.

[yadiddle]

I’ve been asked by many doctors over the last few months, doctors who know little or nothing about Tay Sachs, about the ‘physical markers’ of the disease. My response: beauty.

Emily Rapp