The scary bits
I never mentioned the ambulance ride.
It’s funny, when you think of things later, how you should have been scared or more worried, but you weren’t because your mind had one single solitary purpose: to make sure your kid was okay.
The final time Ron called me that night, to say that Addison had broken his neck, nothing else and he’d have to go to Moncton by ambulance and I was going with him. I thought to myself, after the inital, “He broke. His Neck.” was “now I can see him, see for myself” and “oh god I have to call my mother”
Telling her was hands down one of the worst parts. I prayed that Carl would answer the phone instead, but he didn’t. She did not breathe until I practically screamed into the phone, “He can move! He can wiggle his fingers and toes, Mom!”
I hung up then discovered a message from Ron, he was on his way from the hospital to get me and drive back and hope to God we caught the ambulance before it left. We drove back across town, through the night and the deepening fog. Our house can’t get much further away from the hospital, being almost opposite the river from it.
The emergency room, and we are let in, past waiting hurting people wondering why we can rush in ahead of them, worried faces, in through the door marked Staff Only Beyond This Point. Part of your brain thinks, “Wow, this is serious.”
And then, then you see your son, strapped down, staff hovering, police wandering, stuff on the floor, just like an ER set but it’s your baby in the middle. His eyes turn to see me, the only thing that moves. “Don’t worry, Mom,” he tells me and they are the sweetest words I’ve heard all night. He wiggles his toes to show me.
We talk to doctors, police, and nurses who keep telling us “Renee will be going with you” and “Mary-Ann is leaving with you,” Now I can’t remember who actually went, but she was nice.
I get in the back of the ambulance, through the side door. I’m in the jump seat directly behind the driver. I stash my coat, my purse and help with the lights and switches. We are on our way. “It’s pretty foggy out,” says a voice from up front, “we goin’ cold?”
“Nope,” says the nurse across from me, writing on her clipboard, “we’re going warm.” I can see through the windows the yellow light flashing against the fog and bouncing back at us.
Halfway there, the fog lifts. We see lights & people on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. “Want to check? They might be flagging us down, I can’t tell,” says the voice from the front seat. We make a full u-turn across the highway, hanging on. The owners of the lights are okay, just out for a 4-wheeling drive at 2 am.
Later on the drive, the nurse asks me about Addison and school. I tell her he’s homeschooled, she asks me some questions, and I give her short answers. It occurs to a faint part of my brain that usually I give better answers.
I twist around and look out the front windshield. We have made it into town. The fog had descended again, obliterating signs and streetlights until we are almost on top of them. Someone blips the siren. I have no idea where we are.
We drive around the back of the hospital, to the ambulance entrace, through more doors with warnings. People wave us through. I hit the button on the service elevator, fourth floor. We go through lots of double doors until we get to a room in the neuro ICU. More nurses show up, everyone streams into the room and finally, someone stops me.
“You can go wait in the room down there,” she tells me. I look through the large glass window and can’t see my baby for all the people around him. I go to the family room, nod hello to the sleepy worried couple already there and do the only thing I can.
I read. There’s a whole bookcase full of nursing textbooks, including a sole volume on caring for spinal cord injury patients. I check the index and skim most of a whole chapter, starting on page 75. I study diagrams until a nurse pops her head in. “You can see him now,” and this time she smiles.
When the doctor is explaining things, I parrot back what I know, what I’ve learned. He asks how I know and I tell him I read the book in the other room. “You read fast,” he tells me. For the rest of Addison’s stay, I can’t find the book again. Addison tells me it doesn’t hurt so much with the neck & head brace off. That’s when he had the pulley on his head.
I spend the rest of the wee hours of the morning slouched down in a chair dozing. I place my forehead on the edge of bed, holding his good hand while he sleeps. Later, Addison wants me to talk to him, just talk, about anything at all. I tell him the story of when he was 4 months old, in the hospital with bronchialitis for four days, arriving with a fever of 104. I never left his side for 3 nights, sleeping on a cot on the floor next to him.
Ron shows up with the girls for a visit. They are ready to take me back home for some sleep. “It’s okay, Mom,” says the voice from the bed, “I’m not going anywhere.” And he cracks a smile.
5 Responses to “The scary bits”
Oh my God, Andrea! That must have been so scary! I was freaked out just going there with you in your recollection. You really conveyed the moment by moment thinking a mom has to do just to be brave in those situations. You were very brave and so was Addison. Looks like the panic has caught up with you in the form of sleepiness lately. I’m so glad things turned out as positively as they did, all things considered.
Kim C.
What can I say? WOW, that is intense! God has surely done a miracle in your midst!!! Praying for your family. You are quite a strong woman, indeed!
I felt like I was right there along with you. You captured the moment so well in words. You are such a talented writer. And thank god we can look at it reflectively like this because Addison is ok.
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