The hospital Avner moved from emergency to the pediatric floor on that Friday afternoon. Avner arrived at the hospital early in the morning after a difficult evening, still asleep and unable to cooperate, nonverbal and resisting attempts to examine him.
Barbara and I woke early Friday morning. We had taken a gamble on my hunch, based on an article I had found on the internet. The day before had been an unqualified disaster. Avner destroyed personal possessions, taken a stab at ruining his most important friendship and scared us as his parents. We chose between calling for emergency services to have him involuntarily committed or going with the hope that
Avner’s pediatrician finally saw a small part of what we had been experiencing and suggested that we take him to the local hospital emergency department. Like frogs in a slowly warming pan of water, daily exposure to Avner’s changes of mood and affect had failed to make the impression that urgent action was required. Instead, I continued searching for the perfect solution instead of the immediately available one. Kleine Levin
One night, as we watched tv on our living room sofa, I found something different than all the results for narcolepsy. It was a Wikipedia article about a very strange disorder called Kleine Levin Syndrome.
The third poem in a series from 2017 explores that feeling that KLS takes our own children from us and leaves us to care for someone who isn’t quite the child that was there before. Parents of children with Kleine Levin Syndrome express this sentiment in conversation and our online support group.