The third of September

 

It’s been a year.  A year and a day ago, I took my baby, less than two weeks shy of his second birthday, to the emergency department at Dunedin Hospital. Two days of tests. X-rays. Needles. No sleep. Constantly holding, shushing, murmuring reassurances. I am astonished at how much of it I can remember with absolute clarity.

Praying, with increasing desperation, that he would start to get better. And even in that prayer having this thought: If he doesn’t get better today, it just means that we haven’t found what’s wrong. Pleading, in my mind.

This little boy has always taught us that he knows what he needs. What will help. The only, only time he slept at the hospital, was in my arms. As soon as I put him down he would wake up again, despite his utter exhaustion and pain.

Afternoon. A nasogastric tube, increasing numbers of paediatricians coming to observe, another scan. We all had to don gloves and gowns in case he was contagious. We arrived at the scan room and the radiologist asked me what was happening. I burst into tears and couldn’t talk. Our nurse kindly interjected, “Mum hasn’t had any sleep.” Matt and I had to hold him while they scanned and he cried. All he wanted was a cuddle. The doctors looking at the scan appeared to be reaching a conclusion. They said, “We don’t need these gowns on.” I was so grateful that they explained to us in the room what they could see. We still didn’t know what would happen but I was beginning to realise that surgery was looking likely.

After a day, a night, and most of another day of unanswered questions and waiting, things sped up. Back in our room, one of the doctors came to talk to us. “We’re going to fly you to Christchurch.”  

In our room, things still felt sluggish but all around phone calls were being made, people assembled. A nurse came in and said to Matt, “There’s a flight but you have to leave here NOW.”

The helicopter stretcher arrived. They strapped us in. The nurses who travelled with us felt like angels. Calm, reassuring, compassionate. While we waited up the top, one explained to me that travelling in the chopper feels like a gondola. It would take us ninety minutes. I clearly recall wondering how I would get through those minutes.  On top of the hospital it was a clear night, I could see the harbour, the moon, the city lights. I said to my little one we were going in the helicopter; it would be noisy. He smiled.

Earmuffs on. Crowded. I was leaning back very uncomfortably, holding my boy, trying not tangle his line and tube. Ninety minutes. We can do this. About half an hour in, the pilot said that the weather in Christchurch was looking to pack in and he might have to put us down in Timaru and then we'd go by ambulance. I don’t think I have ever prayed so hard, so furiously for the clouds to part.

We landed. A very short ambulance trip to Christchurch hospital. Everything seemed so bright after the dark inside the chopper. Matt walked in the door fifteen minutes after we arrived on the ward. Then the surgeon came in and told us what would happen.

At the end she said, “This is very unlikely but I have to tell you that if what we find is incompatible with life then we will come and tell you and you will be able to say goodbye.” I don’t like to think about those words. But I can’t forget them either.

We took him into the operating theatre. He didn’t want to be put down. He struggled and we had to walk away.

I thought that this part would be the worst. The waiting. But from somewhere came peace.  There was no alternative but to leave him in the hands who would mend him, and the hands of God. There was only letting go. Trusting.

Finally allowed to go into his recovery room. The recovery nurses made me a cup of tea with milk and sugar. Is there anything better in the middle of the night, when you haven’t slept for two days? Beeps from the monitors. The anaesthetist came in and hung out with us for a while.

The nurses in ICU made me toast and a bed on the floor in his room. I slept for four consecutive hours for the first time in almost four days. Bliss. There was such calm in that room. The nurses overnight whispering to try not to wake us. Efficiently and quietly checking things.

He was nil by mouth for a few days. Asking for “Nilk” and I had to keep saying no. That first feed after surgery was a moment I treasure.

As soon as Matt had arrived at the hospital the nurses gave him a key for Ronald McDonald house and sent him off down the road to get a tour and check in. We hadn’t even given a thought to where we would stay or eat. It was a couple of days before I left the hospital to go there. What an incredible place. So many emotions threatened to escape me as I was shown around. It is honestly unbelievable to find yourself in this place where everything you hadn’t even realised you would need is there. A beautiful kitchen with baking and snacks there to be eaten. Dinner, cooked fresh for you most nights. A room, a shower, all the toiletries you didn’t bring. I still want to cry when I think about it. One night that we ate there, a family came to cook the dinner for everyone, an epic spread of build your own burgers. Their son, who was in his twenties and there helping, had been a patient as a kid and they had stayed there, and now returned to share the love. The feeling of love and community is real in that place.

I have many more memories in my mind from that week, but this is long enough! A whole year. He is a beautiful child, so funny, so snuggly, chatty, exuberant, empathetic…determined. We know that we are so, so lucky. In the middle of tantrums, dinner debacles, getting-dressed riots… its’s easy to forget. Today though, I remembered.

And I remember so many people to whom we are beyond grateful for their caring, giving and loving. Our parents and families. Our friends and prayer warriors. When I was too tired, overwhelmed and afraid to pray, I rested in the knowledge that your prayers spoke for me. Ronald McDonald House. Nurses, doctors and surgeons in Dunedin and Christchurch. You fixed our boy and we remember you all with the most grateful hearts. Thank you.

If you want to help us share the love with other families who need it, here's the link to my RMHC fundraiser. Click here