Why health?
When I was 23 my son was born. I was able to hold the gray little guy for a few moments before they whisked him away. My family member and husband kept going back and forth from checking on Cody to checking on me. After a few hours some of the doctors came to let me know that they were going to have to life flight the baby to the local trauma hospital, I think at this point I went into shock. My family stopped saying anything and nobody really told me what they saw over those few hours until years later.
After a few sedatives I fell asleep and when I painfully woke the next morning I dragged myself into the shower and got myself dressed to go visit my new baby son.
Upon arriving at the hospital we were informed that Cody was in the incubator, connected to tubes and that I should be prepared to see him this way. How in the world any 23 year old girl could prepare for anything like that?
My husband and step-dad had already been at the hospital and when I saw the baby all I could do was weep. Not cry, weep. The deep tears that actually come from a place you didn't know you had. A place that no man, no parent, no sadness had ever seen. I was slumped over the isolette in amazement that a healthy, doctor-visiting girl could end up in a downtown trauma hospital not bringing her baby home. We were first told that he had meningitis and that we could probably expect him home in a few days, that however was not the case.
14 years later I still have the NICU's phone number memorized. Over that next month it was very common for me to wake up in the middle of the night and call, just to see if he was ok, or alive, or whatever, I just needed to know.
On a return visit to the hospital on day 2 we were rushed into an office and it was explained to us that Cody had a TEF. Basically his lungs were connected to his stomach and all the oxygen that they had been giving him for the past 48 hours had been slowly blowing holes in his stomach and he needed to have emergency surgery to put a hole on the outside of his stomach to let all the air out and to repair the holes that they blew into the stomach. Oh and by the way 10 out of 10 babies die of the "blow holes in the stomach" thing, nobody told me this till years later as well.
We signed the "we know he can die" paper and off he went.
After they realized he had a TEF, after they fixed the bad holes in his stomach, & put in a good hole, he began to improve so that he could gain enough strength to have the TEF repair.
Over the next week I became at peace with the idea of him dying. I came to grips with the reality that my son could die and I fantasized about what that would feel like, what I would do, who would empty his bedroom before I went back home. I know a person my try to come to grips with something awful so that if it happens they feel that they are prepared, ready to deal, or maybe if we imagine the worst, anything better than that is a good thing? Maybe we are actually negotiating with God such that if I think it is going to go bad, the opposite will happen?
When he was two weeks old, we called in the Priest, baptized him, took pictures and waved goodbye to the little guy as he was wheeled away to surgery.
I was frozen for the next few hours, I can tell you what the room looked like but if my life depended on it I could not tell you where I was, what I ate, drank anything. I only remember seeing the doctor walk in. It was as if that doctor had the answers to the rest of my life and he was about to tell them to me. I wanted him to speak but at the same time I was so scared I could have guaranteed my knees weren't attached to my legs anymore.
"The surgery went great"...It was over, or so I thought...dumb little 23 year old. Or maybe it was a coping mechanism? How could anyone deal with the thought of having to do it ever again? How could I deal with knowing that all the antibiotics they would pump him with would eventually ruin his hearing? Would I have made them stop or would I have just been in more pain knowing that the result of saving him would affect his hearing.
I learned everything I could in that NICU. I lived there. I knew what every med, every machine, every beep did. I knew what a crack baby looked like, I knew who's mom would visit and who's wouldn't, who's parents wouldn't have to come back because there baby was going to die, they were septic and I quickly learned that was really bad. It was in the NICU that I learned the importance of a healthy bowel.
Cody was the largest, sickest kid in the NICU. He weighed 6 lbs and had a full head of black straight hair. Well, that's how it started anyway. You quickly learn that doctors and nurses need new veins all the time, and when they can't find them they shave your baby's hair, give it to you in a little envelope and put the iv in there. After a few weeks and no move veins they put it in their neck, at the time you say "oh, yeah, of course" but when they are 14 and you can still see the scar you wonder how you allowed any of it to happen, thank God for being in a fog.
After Cody's surgery he got stronger and stronger. He had and still has the most amazing will I have every seen.
I finally held him when he was 19 days old. They were giving me permission to disrupt the flow off what had been happening for the past 3 weeks, I knew beeps, alarms, lights, schedules, doctors names, but I didn't know how to hold Cody, that wasn't part of the program. I knew lasix, albumin I knew BP and all the nursed names, but now I had to be mom, I had to engage, I had to love. I learned to disconnect, I learned to deal, to cope, to understand my role as the non-caregiver, I was the person that showed and watched. I showed, I was a good mom. I was a disconnected, ready for my son to die mom. hmmm...how can you be both?
On my 24th birthday Cody came home for I think 2 weeks before he went back again with pneumonia. At the house we had a heart rate monitor (that I can hear to this day), Oxygen and he ate from a tube in this stomach that I also had to administer meds in. I looked at the positive and told myself that it was ok because he was the only newborn that didn't wake up to eat (he ate on a continuous feel all night).
This 30 day beginning of motherhood will never leave me. Every August I am haunted with feelings of fear, anger, loss, sadness, you know that kind of sadness you feel for the rest of your life no matter how far away from the sadness you get, and I relive it all, piece by piece, who knows..it is always there...
This was a part of my journey, he was the beginning of my journey, he opened my eyes to how very real being sick can be...
After a few sedatives I fell asleep and when I painfully woke the next morning I dragged myself into the shower and got myself dressed to go visit my new baby son.
Upon arriving at the hospital we were informed that Cody was in the incubator, connected to tubes and that I should be prepared to see him this way. How in the world any 23 year old girl could prepare for anything like that?
My husband and step-dad had already been at the hospital and when I saw the baby all I could do was weep. Not cry, weep. The deep tears that actually come from a place you didn't know you had. A place that no man, no parent, no sadness had ever seen. I was slumped over the isolette in amazement that a healthy, doctor-visiting girl could end up in a downtown trauma hospital not bringing her baby home. We were first told that he had meningitis and that we could probably expect him home in a few days, that however was not the case.
14 years later I still have the NICU's phone number memorized. Over that next month it was very common for me to wake up in the middle of the night and call, just to see if he was ok, or alive, or whatever, I just needed to know.
On a return visit to the hospital on day 2 we were rushed into an office and it was explained to us that Cody had a TEF. Basically his lungs were connected to his stomach and all the oxygen that they had been giving him for the past 48 hours had been slowly blowing holes in his stomach and he needed to have emergency surgery to put a hole on the outside of his stomach to let all the air out and to repair the holes that they blew into the stomach. Oh and by the way 10 out of 10 babies die of the "blow holes in the stomach" thing, nobody told me this till years later as well.
We signed the "we know he can die" paper and off he went.
After they realized he had a TEF, after they fixed the bad holes in his stomach, & put in a good hole, he began to improve so that he could gain enough strength to have the TEF repair.
Over the next week I became at peace with the idea of him dying. I came to grips with the reality that my son could die and I fantasized about what that would feel like, what I would do, who would empty his bedroom before I went back home. I know a person my try to come to grips with something awful so that if it happens they feel that they are prepared, ready to deal, or maybe if we imagine the worst, anything better than that is a good thing? Maybe we are actually negotiating with God such that if I think it is going to go bad, the opposite will happen?
When he was two weeks old, we called in the Priest, baptized him, took pictures and waved goodbye to the little guy as he was wheeled away to surgery.
I was frozen for the next few hours, I can tell you what the room looked like but if my life depended on it I could not tell you where I was, what I ate, drank anything. I only remember seeing the doctor walk in. It was as if that doctor had the answers to the rest of my life and he was about to tell them to me. I wanted him to speak but at the same time I was so scared I could have guaranteed my knees weren't attached to my legs anymore.
"The surgery went great"...It was over, or so I thought...dumb little 23 year old. Or maybe it was a coping mechanism? How could anyone deal with the thought of having to do it ever again? How could I deal with knowing that all the antibiotics they would pump him with would eventually ruin his hearing? Would I have made them stop or would I have just been in more pain knowing that the result of saving him would affect his hearing.
I learned everything I could in that NICU. I lived there. I knew what every med, every machine, every beep did. I knew what a crack baby looked like, I knew who's mom would visit and who's wouldn't, who's parents wouldn't have to come back because there baby was going to die, they were septic and I quickly learned that was really bad. It was in the NICU that I learned the importance of a healthy bowel.
Cody was the largest, sickest kid in the NICU. He weighed 6 lbs and had a full head of black straight hair. Well, that's how it started anyway. You quickly learn that doctors and nurses need new veins all the time, and when they can't find them they shave your baby's hair, give it to you in a little envelope and put the iv in there. After a few weeks and no move veins they put it in their neck, at the time you say "oh, yeah, of course" but when they are 14 and you can still see the scar you wonder how you allowed any of it to happen, thank God for being in a fog.
After Cody's surgery he got stronger and stronger. He had and still has the most amazing will I have every seen.
I finally held him when he was 19 days old. They were giving me permission to disrupt the flow off what had been happening for the past 3 weeks, I knew beeps, alarms, lights, schedules, doctors names, but I didn't know how to hold Cody, that wasn't part of the program. I knew lasix, albumin I knew BP and all the nursed names, but now I had to be mom, I had to engage, I had to love. I learned to disconnect, I learned to deal, to cope, to understand my role as the non-caregiver, I was the person that showed and watched. I showed, I was a good mom. I was a disconnected, ready for my son to die mom. hmmm...how can you be both?
On my 24th birthday Cody came home for I think 2 weeks before he went back again with pneumonia. At the house we had a heart rate monitor (that I can hear to this day), Oxygen and he ate from a tube in this stomach that I also had to administer meds in. I looked at the positive and told myself that it was ok because he was the only newborn that didn't wake up to eat (he ate on a continuous feel all night).
This 30 day beginning of motherhood will never leave me. Every August I am haunted with feelings of fear, anger, loss, sadness, you know that kind of sadness you feel for the rest of your life no matter how far away from the sadness you get, and I relive it all, piece by piece, who knows..it is always there...
This was a part of my journey, he was the beginning of my journey, he opened my eyes to how very real being sick can be...
Hey Meredyth! Loved reading this! So sorry that you and your son had to go through this!
ReplyDeleteReading your words took me back to that time. I remember talks we used to have. You talked about all the treatments so matter of factly & took care of him so effortlessly like it was no big deal. That's what a good mom does. I admired your strength back then & still do. I am happy to see you happy in life & Cody so full of life in pictures you post. His face is the same as it was the day I saw him for the first time. Cute as ever! God bless always!
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