Notes for: Adrian Esfandiar Bodine
From Ronny Bodine:
San Jose Mercury News (CA) - Thursday, February 29, 1996
Deceased Name: ADRIAN BODINE, 4, SPIRIT INSPIRED OTHERS
If, like Leopold Stokowski, he could have mounted the podium and conducted the ''Fantasia'' music that he loved, Adrian Bodine surely would have. If, like Jimi Hendrix, he could have raged on his guitar, he might have done that, too. Adrian Bodine could neither stand nor stomp, but he could crawl right into the hearts of the dozens of care-givers who came to know his determination during the last two years. Adrian was 4 years, 8 months and 21 days old when a brain tumor called ependymoma took his life Feb. 21 in Valley Medical Center. ''He was tenacious to the end,'' said Feng Tsao, one of those care-givers. ''Such a spirit.'' Such a saga. The tumor, or glioma, that ultimately killed Adrian Bodine might have been growing very slowly in his cerebellum when he was born at O'Connor Hospital on May 31, 1991. It didn't show up until he was a little over 2. He was the middle son of Dan Bodine and Christa Shahriari, but when Adrian started losing his ability to keep his balance, his mother was unable to care for her sons, especially Sebastian, an infant, and the couple separated. Almost at the same time that Dan Bodine took custody of his three sons, Adrian showed signs of hydrocephalus, fluid on the brain, and his tumor was diagnosed. A shunt was inserted to remove the pressure and fluid, and Adrian underwent his first brain operation in October 1993. Surgeons removed about half the tumor. Dan Bodine had suddenly become a full-time single parent for Dorian, 5; Sebastian, 7 months; and Adrian, 2 years, 4 months. He had been a physics student at University of California, Santa Cruz and dropped out. He had no source of income when Adrian became ill; the emergency housing consortium helped with shelter; he obtained Aid to Families with Dependent Children, Supplemental Security Income, Medi-Cal and eventually a U.S. Housing and Urban Development apartment. For a year, the Bodines managed. Dan took some classes at Foothill College. Adrian enjoyed his visits to Chandler Tripp School with other disabled children. His brother Dorian, 6 going on 21, became more than a big brother. Mercury News Wish Book donors made Christmas 1994 more livable with some toys and a dishwasher. Then surgeons had to operate on Adrian's tumor again, in February 1995. Nearly all of it was removed, but his recovery took months. He had to breathe through a tube in his trachea, eat through a tube in his stomach. Still, Adrian literally had a solid grip on life as he knew it. It came in the form of two half-inch sticks that could conduct a symphony or whack a brother. Those sticks stayed in his grip, when he sat, when he crawled. ''Adrian Two Sticks,'' called out his father on entering Adrian's room. ''He'd lock his eyes on me and make sure I stayed. My antics could provide a laugh, but he'd cry as people left the room. He just hated goodbyes.'' Adrian had developed a vocabulary of about 50 words, although he couldn't speak because of nerve damage on one side of his face and the trachea tube. He would identify objects, and he could mouth ''Mickey Mouse.'' He loved it when his grandfather, Jean Bodine, read to him. When one of Adrian's sticks disappeared, he replaced it with a stuffed dinosaur, said Dan Bodine. ''He'd chew on the dinosaur and then laugh,'' said his father. ''It was a silent laugh, with a whisper, breathy. He loved it when he was getting into mischief.'' At Scribbles and Giggles, a center aligned with Saratoga Subacute Hospital, Adrian and other medically fragile children helped one another learn to feed themselves, to feel and smell cookie dough, to sing.
''Even in his very last week,'' said Feng Tsao, Scribbles and Giggles director, ''Adrian was still so very motivated to play. I remember I was reading to him and when I pointed to a comb, he would point to his hair; with a spoon, he'd bring his hand to his mouth.'' Troubled breathing signaled the end for Adrian Bodine earlier this month. A CT scan showed that his tumor had begun to grow rapidly. Further surgery was not an option. When several dozen friends and family members gathered at Lima Family-Erickson Mortuary on Tuesday evening to say goodbye to Adrian, as in any saga, the word heroic entered more than one conversation. Thirty-year-old Dan Bodine had resisted characterizing the past two years. ''If it was an ordeal,'' he said, ''I wouldn't trade it.'' Somewhere, he said, he will plant a tree for his son.