My parents took me to Children’s Orthopedic Hospital in Seattle, where the doctors quickly diagnosed my condition— and none too soon. Cystic hygroma can lead to obstruction of a person’s breathing; it can cause nervous palsies, possible hemorrhaging, and infection, and I was showing signs of developing everything on the list. It was time to operate.
I was barely two months old when the doctors cut my neck open, trying to clean out a swollen mass that threatened to kill me!
They succeeded—mostly—and then kept me in the hospital for ten days to watch for possible complications. It must have been a long haul for a newborn. Mom recalls that when they finally placed me back in her arms to go home, I was a tiny “bag of bones,” with a long scar and black sutures that made it appear as if my head had been nearly severed and then sewn back on.
“We’ve done all that we can,” the doctors told my parents. “Just take him home and love him, and that will be the best medicine for him.” Although the doctors informed Mom and Dad that a recurrence was possible and that cystic growth into surrounding tissues was unpredictable, they didn’t expect any complications.
Mom and Dad got back to building their life. Dad went back to working at the luggage factory where he’d worked while attending Bible college, and we did all right. Thanks to the love of my folks and my older brother, Terry, I fattened up again just fine.
But then came complications the doctors didn’t expect. As they’d said, cystic growth can be unpredictable, and the unpredictable happened. My tongue began to swell, and before long, it was hanging out of my mouth, oozing a fluid that turned to black scab when it contacted the air. I drooled constantly, leaving bloody, blackish residue around my mouth and chin, down the front of my clothes, and on my pillow. I was having trouble eating—imagine trying to swallow, even chew, without the help of your tongue!
I became a frequent and familiar patient at Children’s Orthopedic Hospital. The doctors feared cancer, but one elderly surgeon had seen my symptoms previously in another patient, a little girl, whose precious face had been hideously distorted due to her condition. The doctor guessed that the swelling in my tongue was the result of my earlier operation, during which the tumor had been removed. Some lymph glands had also been removed, so now my lymphatic system was secreting infection into my tongue.
It was going to be a tough problem to fix. With the tongue so enlarged, there was no way to shrink it down again except to carve it down. In the first of many operations on my tongue and mouth, the doctors literally cut a wedge of flesh from my tongue in an effort to keep it in my mouth.
Next problem: With my tongue carved down to a stump, it couldn’t do the usual tasks a tongue is supposed to do. I could barely move it. Eating was difficult, speaking even more so. The surgeons operated again . . . and again, removing flesh below my tongue to free it up, then performing plastic surgery on my face around my jaw and chin. By the time I was four years old, I had endured seven rounds of surgery. I vaguely remember some of the later operations; I can still recall how unpleasant it felt, being tied to a hospital bed, being fed through tubes shoved down my nose, and having wooden sleeves holding my arms straight so I couldn’t touch my face. I missed my family, I wanted to go home, and I wanted to sleep in real pajamas, not those goofy hospital gowns that are wide open in the back.
When at last the doctors allowed me to go home, the journey wasn’t over. My tongue was still big and unwieldy, protruding from my mouth, and by now I was learning to talk that way. My speech was slurred, like Sylvester the Cat, and my tongue was still oozing fluid that caked on my lips and chin like dark chocolate—and sometimes sprayed on others if I pronounced a really strong s. I drew stares wherever we went. Mom, Dad, and my brother, Terry, were protective, but they couldn’t possibly shield me from the natural revulsion most people expressed, knowingly or not, once they noticed the raw flesh and brown gunk in my mouth.
“Ooh, what’s wrong with him?” the children, and too often the adults, would say. “Ooh, yuck!”
Can you figure God out? My folks did a lot of praying for me, as did the members of our church and all the extended family, gathering around me, laying hands on me, and praying that God would heal me.
Even Oral Roberts prayed for me. When I was around three years of age, the famous healing evangelist came to Seattle to conduct a crusade in a huge tent. Mom and Dad felt it was worth a try—you never know what God might do—so they took me to the service.
The tent was packed with the faithful, the hopeful, and the curious, and it was sweltering in there. Folks were fanning themselves with song sheets; you could hear the steady rustling, and the vast crowd looked like a forest of quaking aspens. But nobody left. They sat right where they were and listened in awe as Roberts preached an encouraging message about how Jesus healed everyone who came to Him and how we need to have faith.
Then came the climax, the moment the crowd anxiously anticipated: the prayer line. The evangelist invited those in the audience who needed a healing touch from God to move to the front of the tent so he could pray for each person specifically. Throngs of people went forward and formed the line along the front of the platform and around the side of the tent. This was it!
Mom and Dad pressed into the line, Dad carrying me in his arms, standing, then shuffling forward, then standing, then shuffling forward inch by inch while Reverend Roberts prayed for each person. Exciting things were happening up at the front of the line. Shouts of joy filled the air; some people were jumping, some cheering. The organ player was pounding out plenty of old-time praise songs for what God was doing. With each outburst, each victory, Mom and Dad’s faith spiked upward.
Finally, it was our turn. While the organ played in the background, the evangelist leaned over so he could hear Dad whisper in his ear what the need was. Reverend Roberts didn’t need a lot of description; he could see the problem for himself, and he appeared genuinely concerned, even stymied, by the sight of my dangling tongue. “Hand the boy up to me.”
My dad has never been much of a weeper, but tears filled his eyes as he lifted me up and presented me to the healing evangelist. It was a moment of desperate hope, of clinging faith, of deep, earnest longing that somehow, somewhere in His inscrutable, mysterious nature, God would see fit to hear this prayer where other prayers had failed.
Standing on the platform in front of the massive crowd, Oral Roberts held me up in his arms and confessed, “I’ve never seen anything quite like this problem before.” He prayed, and the crowd of believers prayed with him, that God would heal me. The organ played, the saints believed, and the cry went up to heaven, while the little slobbering kid in the middle of it all had no clue what the hubbub was about.
When Reverend Roberts handed me back to my father, I grabbed hold of Dad tightly, just glad to be back in his arms. Mom took a cloth diaper from her coat pocket—my ever-present drool rag—and dabbed the ooze from my mouth and tongue. My tongue was still running, raw, and grotesque as ever. Nothing had changed.
There was nothing more to do but go home.
My folks were sorely disappointed that I had not been healed instantly. Why hadn’t God answered the many prayers offered in faith, believing God for a miracle? It’s tough enough trying to figure God out, but especially when, to fulfill His plans, God seems a bit deaf. Making matters worse, of course, we usually don’t get an immediate explanation.
Mom had been beating herself up emotionally and spiritually ever since my birth. She’d seen me suffering and had kept asking herself, “What did I do wrong?” Satan was no help; he was always quick to tell her, “This is your fault.” It was a lie and she knew it, but the thought stung her, clinging to her mind like a leech. At times, the punishing thoughts, the guilt, and the frustration hurt so badly she just wanted to take her baby and run away, to hide where nobody could find them and no eyes could stare at them anymore.
And now, it seemed that their last, best hope for my healing had proved disappointing. My disfigurement remained the s
ame; the stares, snide comments, and Satan’s devious accusations would all continue.
Dad kept a lot of his pain and frustration inside. That was just his way. But I still recall Mom telling me that the only time she’d ever seen him cry was when he was asking folks to pray for me.
Were the prayers doing any good?
Without a doubt! God has a knack for performing miracles that remain unseen only because of our shortsightedness. My folks knew that. Sure, it was painful and frustrating at the time, and the whole rotten mess could make them feel so helpless, but my folks knew that God heard their prayers, and applied every one of them to His divine purpose for Frank Peretti. Of course God heard the many prayers on my behalf . . . and He answered them in His time, and in His way. The resulting healing process is still at work in my life to this day.
So Mom and Dad persevered in faith, trusting that God would eventually heal me in whichever manner He wanted. The surgeries continued, along with repeated visits to the doctor. Everything seemed to go so sloooowly, but my parents never gave up hope. They continued to believe God, and they trusted Him, one day at a time.
And really, when I consider my condition at the beginning, the Lord was very gracious to me. For a while, the doctors were concerned that my face would be misshapen or that my teeth would come in crooked because of the constant pressing of my tongue, but amazingly, my face maintained its normal structure, and my teeth came in straight. I could have done a lot worse. In researching cystic hygroma, I’ve found that other kids with the defect have had to bear a much greater burden of disfigurement.
My burden was limited to my ugly tongue and one side effect: my small stature. Apparently, my body had been so preoccupied with fighting off infection that it had to postpone growing. The doctors assured my folks that I’d catch up eventually. We would just have to be patient.
We got on with our lives, and life at home was normal enough. Dad changed jobs again and began his thirty-year career at the Boeing Company, so we moved into a house in south Seattle, on a hill just above Boeing Field. That was during the heyday of the B-52, and I want to tell you, those big birds were loud when they took off!
Mom and Dad loved my brother, Terry, and me, and we played together and got into fights over toys and got in and out of trouble like any kids would do. Our younger brother, Paul, came along, and Terry and I got jealous because Paul got to have Ivory soap in his bath and we didn’t. Life was normal.
I was small and I talked funny, but that didn’t matter at home. Mom and Dad always loved me and let me know that I was special, that I would grow up to be big and strong someday, and that the problem with my tongue would soon go away. I believed them, and, really, we did all right.
And then . . . I had to go to school.
MONSTERS
ON THE LOOSE
Chapter Four
Come on, honey; it’s time to go to school,” I heard Mom’s voice calling. “You are going to have so much fun. You’ll get to color and play games and listen to stories. You’ll love it!”
Mom checked my sweater to make sure I was dressed just right for my first day of kindergarten. My tongue still protruded from my mouth, and I had difficulty pronouncing many words, but I had developed my own way of saying words when my tongue refused to cooperate. For the most part, I could communicate fairly well.
Going to kindergarten was almost like being at home. The teacher was kind and loving, and she never said a word about my disfigurement. At first, most of the children were kind, too, or maybe they were just as awed by the school experience as I was, so I didn’t receive many snide remarks. As the year went on, however, the teasing began.
Children can say the funniest things. They also can say some of the cruelest things imaginable. Even at that young age, the kids seemed compelled to remind me about the scab-covered tongue hanging from my mouth. By the end of my kindergarten year, I’d had quite enough of school and didn’t want to return.
When Mom dropped me off at school to begin first grade, I decided not to stay. By now, I was extremely self-conscious about my size and disfigurement, so as soon as I saw our car disappear around the corner, I ran away from school and headed back home. I was like a human boomerang, returning to the person who sent me out. Sometimes, I got home before Mom parked the car in our garage!
“I don’t wanna go to school!” I railed.
“Frank, honey, you have to go to school,” Mom insisted.
“No, I’m not going!”
“Yes, you must.”
I loved my mother dearly, and she loved me, even as she planted deeply in my mind the axioms of authority that would follow me for years: “You have to be there. You have no choice.”
She herded me into the car and drove me back to school.
One morning, after I ran away from school again and Mom took me back, my teacher told her, “You just leave him to me. I’ll handle him.”
Mom peeked through the window of the door to the classroom while the teacher took me back inside and kindly but firmly sat me down at my desk. I burst out in tears and wailed wildly. The teacher remained nonplussed. She gave me some special assignments and told me, “Now, Frank, stop your crying. You’re in school now. It’s time to do your work like a big boy.” The teacher arranged my work on the desk for me and gave me enough to keep me busy for a while. She checked on me regularly, and before long, I became interested in the work and forgot about the incessant teasing of the other children.
Until recess, when it started all over again.
The scenario was repeated throughout my elementary school years. On one occasion, Mom and Dad complained to the school principal about the teasing. The principal listened attentively and apparently passed the word on to some teachers, but no amount of adult supervision could prevent the arrows from piercing my heart on the playground, in physical education class, or in the school bathrooms, away from the watchful eyes of the teachers.
The only safe havens were at home and at church. The kids at church had known me most of my life and understood that something was wrong. They were good friends. They had heard some of the adults praying for my healing, and some of them had even prayed for me themselves.
One Sunday morning, when I was about seven years of age, I was sitting in church, trying to keep from squirming around as Dad led the song service. My tongue was throbbing. Intense pain began to flare around my throat. Before long, I felt as if a lump of meat was stuck in my throat and I could barely breathe.
We weren’t supposed to talk in church. We weren’t supposed to fidget or make noise. So, since I had to scream and cry, I did it while running out of the sanctuary.
Mom came running after me. “Frank! What’s wrong?”
I clutched at my throat, choking, tears streaming from my eyes. The more I cried, the worse the pain got. Mom took one look at my neck and saw the swelling around my throat.
Mumps! A serious enough affliction for any child, but far worse for a child with cystic hygroma! Mom raced to a phone and called our doctor, who prescribed medication to reduce the fever and swelling.
The medication did the trick and I was able to breathe more easily, but getting any food past my doubly swollen tongue and badly constricted throat was another matter. Mom and Dad had to feed me through a straw for several weeks. My bout with the mumps served to notify them that I was probably going to need more surgery on my tongue and mouth.
And so it went. Life was painful at times because of sickness, the world was cruel at times because of taunts and teasing, and the laundry could get gruesome whenever my tongue decided to have another “eruption.”
But I just have to brag about my mom and dad. Along with the Lord, they were the solid rock under my feet and never neglected any chance to encourage my creativity. I became interested in drawing and cartooning, so they supplied me with paper, pencils, and art books. I wanted to build a twenty-foot model of the Titanic in the backyard, so Dad let me use his tools and scrap lumber— provided I put everything away when
I was done. My brothers and I set out to build some airplanes in the garage, so Dad moved the cars out and let us have at it. We were going to build a foot-powered paddleboat as well, and got as far as stacking some old oil drums— flotation—on the back patio for several months. I came up with an idea for a gas-powered, one-man blimp, but that never got off the ground.
Most of our big projects never floated or flew. Usually, we’d go nuts on one project for a few weeks, then we’d tear it all apart so we could use the lumber and nails to fulfill the next big vision. Mom and Dad just watched to make sure we didn’t hurt ourselves, made sure we put things away and got our homework done, and went with the flow. Dad gave us advice, let us use his tools, and granted us room in the garage, on the patio, or in the basement, for as long as it took. Never once did he tell us it wasn’t worth it or that we’d never succeed or that our ideas were dumb.
I did succeed with many smaller projects more within my reach, working wonders with the cardboard from empty cereal boxes. I built a spaceship, a three-story haunted house, a jet airliner, a whole fleet of Boeing 727s and KC-135s, the Space Needle, the Seattle Coliseum, and the Century 21 monorail out of cereal boxes and good old, dependable Elmer’s glue—they were toy size, of course. I even got my picture in the paper, standing next to my cardboard Space Needle. Guess who made that happen?
One Christmas, Mom and Dad surprised me with a ventriloquist dummy named Jerry, and that little wooden head became my alter ego, bringing out the ham in me. We entertained our family members and put on shows, and Jerry even went to school with me a few times to perform for my class. Jerry and I became pretty close. He helped me come out of my shell, we won ourselves some new respect from my classmates, and he never had a problem with my looks or size.
No More Bullies Page 3
