It was a morning of life and death, and hope and fear, and unseen enemies that most of us can't even begin to understand.  In other words, it was a typical morning in the Pediatric Critical Care unit at Cardinal Glennon Children's Hospital.

    Half an hour before the first hijacked airliner slammed into one of the towers at the World Trade Center, a 13-month-old boy was wheeled out of the unit and taken to surgery.  He had been born with a hole between his right and left ventricles.  The chief surgeon was Andrew Fiore.  He had started his career operating on adults.  Then he assisted with a pediatric surgery, and before long, he converted his practice to kids.  It is, of course, high-risk stuff.  High reward, too, if you can take a very ill child and give him or her a chance for a long and normal life.

     On this very abnormal day, that's what the surgical team was trying to do.  Give a child a chance.

     Back in the unit, the staff was standing transfixed in front of the televisions.  Like the rest of us, they were trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.  How do people hijack airplanes in a time of metal detectors?  How many people died?  Who would do this, and why?  Is it killing for the sake of killing, or do the people responsible think they will accomplish something by the slaughter of innocents?

     Dr. Bob Lynch, who heads the unit, ordered the televisions off.   "We can't afford to be distracted," he said.  "Our work goes on even on a day like this," he said.

     He was right, of course, and that was something to take comfort in.  God's work continues even on a day that belongs to the devil.

     About the time the second tower collapsed, Lynch took a 3-month-old child off a ventilator.  Could the baby breathe on his own?  Yes.  Or so it seemed.  Lynch moved to another room, leaving Kelly Murawski in charge, which is something he can do with complete confidence.  She's an advanced practice nurse in critical care.  But suddenly there was a problem with the baby's breathing.  Murawski called for assistance, and with the help of Dr. Teresa Andreone, stabilized the situation.

     As much as anything can be stabilized in an uncertain world, anyway.

     The baby's mother had discovered the child gasping for breath.  He nearly died.  What caused the problem?  Nobody yet knows.  What's more, the little boy is one of twins.  Does his sister face the same unknown problem?

     Sometimes to a layperson who visits a hospital, it seems the world is full of unseen and unknowable enemies.  Microbes too small to be seen by the naked eye, cancers and viruses that seem to possess an evil intelligence.  They are tiny terrorists we can't understand.  The medical practitioners fight the never-ending fight.  At the Pediatric Critical Care Unit at Cardinal Glennon, they win most of their battles.

     But out there in the other world, evil seems to have the upper hand.  If you got up early Tuesday morning and read the paper before the awful news of the day broke, what did you read?  Israeli tanks were shelling a refugee camp that was allegedly being used by suicide bombers.  Muslims and Christians were killing each other in Nigeria.  A Bosnian Serb was going on trial in The Hague for allegedly setting fire to a house where 65 Muslims were locked inside.  In Northern Ireland, Protestants were stoning Roman Catholic children who were going to school.

     God is great.  We just do a miserable job on interpreting His will.

     Back at the Pediatric Critical Care unit, the good guys were holding their own, but not without some setbacks.  Doctors tried to get a little girl, only 6 months old but already the veteran of two heart operations, off a ventilator, but the effort was unsuccessful and the child was put back on the ventilator.  But there were victories.  A child with sickle cell anemia was feeling better.  A 6-year-old who suffers from an unknown type of muscular dystrophy was successfully removed from her ventilator.  She almost died three years ago.  In fact, the doctors had little hope and now credit her mother's fierce love for pulling her through.  The mother was there Tuesday morning, of course, willing her child to breathe.

     The power of love.  It's something to behold, especially on a day when hate seems to be such a powerful force.

     By the way, that day after 9 hours and 15 minutes of surgery the 13 month old boy came out with a prognosis for a normal life.

Reprinted with permission from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch