This was published 1 year ago
‘Stay strong’: the letter from Michael Jordan that gave hoops-mad Ezra a boost
When a 12-year-old boy is admitted to hospital with cancer, his obsession with his favourite sport proves to be more than just a welcome distraction.
Ezra in hospital surrounded by his family (from left) mum Natasha, brother Alon, dad Dean and brothers Levi and Eden.
Take the Bucks jersey.” That was a text message I sent to my husband, Dean, as our son lay motionless, on life support, in ICU. He grabbed the Giannis Antetokounmpo jersey, number 34, and bolted back to hospital.
Our 12-year-old son Ezra is currently deep in his basketball obsession, but has been wired to fall hard almost since birth. His obsessions come fast and are all-consuming. Some have been typical (Thomas the Tank Engine, dinosaurs) and some have come out of left field (picture a Freddie Mercury-obsessed six-year-old singing “Mamaaaa, just killed a man” at the Coles checkout).
The Milwaukee Bucks jersey is still hanging in his room, as it has been for the past 160 days. On an ordinary Saturday, after he was the highest scorer in both his Under 12s and Under 14s basketball games, he had started to feel a bit tired. By Sunday he had spiked a fever. On Monday, the GP said it was likely a virus.
On Tuesday, I brought him to emergency with shooting pains in his legs. Hours later he couldn’t move any part of his body. By the next day he was intubated, unable to breathe on his own. He was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma and acute motor axonal neuropathy. He walked into hospital on December 20 and that was the last time he walked. The day we put up his basketball jersey, he hadn’t opened his eyes for more than 48 hours.
Each Saturday, as we would drive to his basketball games, Ezra would reel off questions and facts at breakneck speed. Did I know who was the shortest player in the US National Basketball Association? Guess his height. Guess. Did I know the tallest one? Guess, go on, guess. The one who got paid the most? (Guess how much!) Something about a triple-double. Mmm-hmm, I would say, merging lanes. “Are you listening or are you just saying mmm-hmm?” he would ask. “I’m listening,” I would say. I was not.
Basketball-obsessive Ezra in action for his Maccabi team.
Days after his last Saturday match, surrounded by the beeps and pings from the various machines that will become the backing track to our lives, I google: who is the tallest player in the NBA? What is a triple double? If I can reverse engineer these things, I may solve some riddle he left for me. Maybe I can undo what has been done. If I’d seen the signs earlier. Joined the dots. Known what a triple-double was. I know it is a kind of magical thinking, but even with this knowing it feels urgent and important. Maybe I can turn back time.
When Ezra is able to open his eyes, he is unable to talk or move. We explain what is happening to him. We don’t know how much he can take in. How much he understands about why he can’t move his body. We come up with a system: Two blinks for “no”, one long blink for “yes”. Are you in pain? One long blink.
It’s too much for a parent to bear. It’s too much for a 12-year-old to endure. He must have questions he is unable to ask right now. Even if he could ask them, it’s likely we couldn’t answer them anyway.
Some friends turn up in Team Ezra T-shirts, blue writing coming out of an orange hoop and ball. They start chatting about which classes Ezra will be in when he is able to return to school. A cleaner walks in to disinfect every surface. She takes the cytotoxic waste basket from his room, his body leaching toxic chemicals from his cancer treatment. Before she leaves, she wipes down the sticky floor. One of the friends looks at Ez wide-eyed. “You get your own cleaner?” he asks. “Man, you’re so lucky.” Long blink.
His great aunt makes him Team Ezra cookies in the shape of a basketball jersey, though he can’t yet eat them. His brothers (who can eat said cookies) draw pictures, which cover his hospital walls. “You can BUZZER BEAT IT” is written on one picture of a giant basketball, complete with backwards Zs. Ezra’s brothers love a game that ends in a buzzer beater, a shot scored at the last moment to win a game. I don’t know the rules of this game we’re playing now, and the opposing side doesn’t seem to be playing by them anyway. I’d prefer a clear win, but the way we’re going, I’ll take a win on the buzzer.
Ezra the basketball player and keen Milwaukee Bucks fan.
When Ezra’s friends visit, they bring Milwaukee Bucks merchandise. The single jersey we brought from home seems to breed. Hats. Bucks bracelets. Another jersey. Socks. His room is an explosion of forest green. His friends have no context for what Ezra is going through. I can only imagine how confronting it must be for 12-year-old boys whose interactions with Ezra once revolved around basketball, school, swimming, parties.
They show up anyway. Even when he can’t talk or move. Even with his thick, long hair gone from chemo. They chat about their day. They tell him what they’ve been up to. They talk about the latest trades, about LeBron James, about their own basketball team’s performance. He can nod now. Soon he will be able to mouth words. Soon he will talk for short periods. They don’t know any of this then, though. They just keep showing up. Texting him YouTube clips of games so we can hold his phone at eye level. They send him memes. Video messages. Miss you, love you, they say.
Within a day, Ezra receives a personal video message from Shaquille O’Neal.
A family friend in New York reaches out to her celebrity connections, tells them about Ezra’s love of basketball. Within a day, he receives a personal video message from Shaquille O’Neal. Another one from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar comes through. Then Khris Middleton. Australian player Joe Ingles reaches out and they begin to text back and forth, Ez dictating what he wants us to write for him, still unable to move below his neck. Ez watches a Bucks game when his third round of chemo wipes him. I hold his hand. I begin to recognise the players. The Bucks are losing and Ez tells me not to worry. They’ll come back in the last quarter, he says. And they do. A letter from Michael Jordan arrives. It tells Ezra to keep fighting and stay strong.
THE DAY Ez went to hospital, I stopped doing the things that brought me joy. Partly because my days were filled with the practicalities of becoming a full-time carer, but also because things that were once enjoyable seemed pointless. I stopped reading. I stopped listening to podcasts. I couldn’t even listen to music. Every ounce of energy was spent on existing in this liminal space.
A signed autograph from Michael Jordan and a Giannis Antetokounmpo Milwaukee Bucks jersey.
Until one morning I go for a walk and put on a podcast I had been obsessed with before my life imploded. I give my mind a short reprieve from replaying the events of the past five months over and over again. From projecting into the future and playing around with all the worst-case scenarios, all the what-ifs. The co-hosts talk about books and shows they have been loving. They mention a book about obsessions, and I add This is Not a Book About Benedict Cumberbatch by Tabitha Carvan to the notes section of my phone. I think about Ezra’s basketball-themed ICU room. “Take the Bucks jersey.” I think of the text message I sent. I buy the book.
When everything is measured, each breath, each mil of nasogastric feed, each vital sign, how do you measure pleasure, and for what purpose? “You just have to love something – anything – like your life depends on it. Maybe it does?” Carvan writes.
Ezra’s days are filled with specialists filing in and out of his room. Physio, OT and rehab sessions. The minutes he spends off his ventilator and breathing on his own are charted on his wall. No professional basketball player works this hard each day. He watches the Bucks lose the playoffs during an occupational therapy session, his iPad in the middle of his room as his team of allied health professionals bend and stretch each limb.
The next day his dad shows him a video of Antetokounmpo after the game. A journalist asks if he has viewed this season as a failure. “Do you get a promotion every year? No, right?” the player replies. “So every year you work is a failure? Every year you work, you work towards something, towards a goal. It’s not a failure, it’s steps to success … It’s a wrong question. There is no failure in sports … Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn.“
Obsessions are sometimes seen as a way to escape. To leave our own world behind and lose ourselves in a musical or a sport or a celebrity. To disappear into the things we love, if only for a short time. But sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes our obsessions are a way to find ourselves. A way to be seen. Here I am, here I am, here I am.
Ezra (and his Bucks jersey) remain in Melbourne’s Monash Children’s Hospital. He is in remission from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and working towards his rehabilitation goals.
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