As some of you already know, at Kartini Clinic we specialize in children and teens with all conditions of disordered eating—but our deepest specialty is children ages 12 and under.
Yesterday I went upstairs to the youngest patient group, which we call the “Fire Group” (Earth, wind and….) to bring them a present I had promised them. At any given time in Fire we have kids with, and those without, nasogastric tubes. We have nine year olds with food phobia, ten year olds with failure to thrive and selective eating, ten year olds with classical restricting/exercising anorexia nervosa, or the more rare bingeing/purging form of the disease, or we may have an 11 year old with binge eating disorder, high body weight and pre-diabetes. We have little kids who were very recently diagnosed and those who have failed multiple attempts at treatment in far away places. Many, at this age, have a strong compulsive movement component to their eating disorder, which can be quite a management challenge. A few have the additional issue of insulin dependent diabetes.
And, by the way, some are Caucasian, some are black, some are Hispanic, some are Asian and every mix of these as well. They come from two-parent families, single-parent families, and melded families, but all have their families actively involved in their care here. Some have commercial insurance, and some have Medicaid. Some come from Portland, some from towns across this country and a few from overseas. In our unit they get treatment, they eat meals, they go to school and they play.
But one thing for sure: they are just kids.
The present I was bringing upstairs to them, in our newly designed Partial Hospital, or day treatment unit, was a glass jar from our home in the countryside full of….. tadpoles!
In the courtyard outside our kitchen door we have a wine half-barrel full of water that acts as a poor man’s water garden and pond. I have variously tried growing lotus and other aquatic plants there with limited success, but my tadpoles have been a roaring success….no pun intended…. as in early spring the frog song is nearly deafening. The little green or brown native tree frogs sing and sing to each other, and eventually lay their eggs. By late May the little “pond” is full of pollywogs, as we call them in the West, and I had scooped up a jar full of them to bring to the kids at Kartini Clinic. Watching tadpoles (pollywogs) grow and develop little legs and then lose their tails and hop away is a rite of childhood… or of the childhoods that once were, when our country was greener, the pace much slower and the internet not even a gleam in DARPA’s compound eye.
Did you know that frogs always return to their natal pond, the “pond” where they once swam as tadpoles? Every year our froglets hop away to the forest nearby and every spring they return to the half-barrel in force.
I had forgotten to bring the kids this promised gift the day before, and the disappointment in their eyes galvanized me and insured I would not forget it again. Even the sad little boy with the tube in his nose, who had not smiled all day, gave a tentative glance in their direction as I placed the pickle jar of wiggly squiggly little beings on the table. Today they would forget their struggles for a few hours as Amy taught them about metamorphosis and the care of tiny beings who cannot tolerate even a drop of chlorine. They would be caught up in the world of water fleas and duckweed and cool depths, instead of food struggles, calories and exercise.
Today the tadpoles would give them the gift of just being kids.
