Focus 3 
Dr. Fred Epstein is a gifted and visionary pediatric neurosurgeon in New York City. In his wonderful book “If I Get to Five,” Dr. Epstein vividly describes the lessons he learned about courage from his patients — children who are facing life-threatening illness.
“The title of this book was inspired by a child who helped me through one of my first moments of truth as a pediatric neurosurgeon. Naomi was only four years old when she arrived at the hospital in grave condition. She had a complicated brain tumor … and she was in a coma. This was twenty-five years ago, when pediatric neurosurgery was in its infancy as a surgical specialty … I had few surgical options for treating Naomi, none of them good. I knew I had to do something quickly or else she’d certainly die. I decided to operate in two stages: first I would relieve the pressure in her brain and buy us both some time, and then, if she came out of her coma, I’d operate a second time to remove the tumor.
After the initial surgery, Naomi regained consciousness. Even with her head swathed in bandages, she was a feisty kid with dancing eyes and a willfulness I’d rarely seen in adults. During my first conversation with her, she climbed to her feet and announced defiantly, “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to ride a two-wheeler!”
I’d see Naomi each day on rounds as we waited for her to regain her strength for the second surgery. While I reviewed her chart, she’d stand up on her bed and update me on her plans. On Monday: “If I get to five, I’m going to beat my older brother in tic-tac-toe.” On Tuesday: “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to tie my shoes with a double knot!”
I was relieved that Naomi never asked me if I thought she’d get to five. In my own mind, her odds weren’t good. As the second, more difficult operation approached, I grew increasingly anxious – and Naomi grew ever more determined in her daily proclamations: “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to read comics!” “If I get to five, I’m going to learn to jump rope – backward!”
As I faced off against a frightening kind of tumor for the first time, I found myself drawing courage from this four-year-old girl. She intuited that even though she had revived from a coma, getting to five was still an ‘if,’ not a ‘when.’ She grasped that to get to five, she needed to look forward to the next level of mastery – learning to jump rope, learning to read.
Naomi taught me that the child’s determination to embrace the next stage in life, to become more powerful and master new skills, can be a lifetime asset. Children are geniuses at raising the bar for themselves, clearing it, and then setting it one notch higher. Working with children raises the bar for me, and for everyone else whose lives they touch. They inspire us to dig deeper for the strength to do what feels hardest, what’s scariest. And to do that, we have to once again become young at heart … What I’ve discovered again and again is that children can model courage and character for adults, if only we pay attention to them.
The kids I treat have helped me see straight. Many people look at them and see victims. What I see are kids who have responded to the most extreme circumstances with courage, creativity, and compassion. These young people are exceptional, but they are also human. They suffer from fear and anger and loneliness – and pain across the widest imaginable spectrum. What makes them exceptional is their determination not to let their illness or its stresses rob them of their joy in life. Adversity has held up a mirror to them – and what they’ve seen is a wealth of inner strengths they had never guessed they possessed.”
Read this book (it’s very short). It will humble you. It will also inspire you to dig deeper for the courage to do what is scariest for you and what feels hardest. It will give you strength to respond to the adversity in your life.
