Knowledge

What makes me a good scientist makes it hard for me to deal with Jeff's death.  As a scientist I live for the mystery: searching, questioning, exploring until an answer is revealed.  In truth, I am usually tormented by this mystery until it is solved which also makes me good at my job.  That drive to continue to seek the answer when it is so elusive.

It is also what makes Jeff's death so hard.  Why did he have a seizure?  What caused it?  I have been searching for that answer since January 30th, after his first seizure.  And I was willing to drag him to every specialist doctor until I found the cause.  But then he died.  And even in his death I seek the answer.  Why? 

Because I live in fear of loosing my children.  Why did Jeff have a seizure at 42?  Could my children suffer the same fate?  How would I ever survive that?

And so I search.  When J1 was diagnosed with Celiac's disease in the laundry list of 250 symptoms that can accompany this intestinal issue is: seizures.  What????  My heart stopped.  I know that J1 has the "gene" for Celiac's disease which means Jeff or myself carried it also.  Could Jeff have had undiagnosed Celiac's could that have been the cause of the seizure?

I had a new avenue to explore.  With Jeff gone, I can't just pop him over to the lab and have his blood tested.  But I got mine done to rule myself out and then I'd get his parents to do the lab work.  Only, now.  I've stopped at myself.

I was the carrier of the gene.  I, and I alone, am responsible for J1's Celiac's disease.  While I was pregnant I played the game.  Will he have my hair, or Jeff's?  My eyes?  My nose?  Hoping he didn't get Jeff's funky toenails (he did, poor thing).  But how do you even consider the medical conditions you didn't even know loitered in your gene pool?  No one in my family had ever been diagnosed with Celiac's so it was never on my radar.

I'm Ok with knowing the gene came from me.  I certainly didn't plan on it, but there was no way to prevent it.  I love my boy just how he is and would never change him so I guess that means I can't want to change his gluten free gullet either.

But this news twists a different knife.  The death of an explanation for Jeff's seizure.  If I had the gene, he didn't and thus, he did not have undiagnosed Celiac's.  I am back to where I was before.  Not knowing the cause, not understanding the ramifications that this might have further down the line for my boys. 

I hate that.  I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  I don't do well without answers.  I just sits on me like an elephant.  And for the first time in my life, I don't want to be a scientist.  I don't want this drive for knowledge.  I want to learn when to give up gracefully.  I want peace from not knowing.  I want forgiveness for not knowing.  If I can't have my life back, if I can't have Jeff back.  Can I just have that?

Sincerely,

Jeff's Wife

ps.  Jeff is holding a cashew on it's fruit.  We didn't know that cashew's grew on a fruit like that until we went through a cashew plantation on our honeymoon.