“Babe, doctor said
you can go ahead and eat,” I said, walking from the door to her bedside, “she’s
putting the order in now so let’s pick what you want.” Kelli loves breakfast.
Maybe it’s her love of diners, the fact you can have a bite of everything or just
that she’s a morning person (more so than me), she just seems to get excited
about going out to breakfast. You can imagine her elation when she’s let off
the chain after two days of
lite/liquid/not-really-just-kidding-you-can-have-ice-chips cuisine. “I’ll have an omelet, bacon, a bagel, potato
stars and juice.” The bacon was a curve-ball, I would’ve guessed sausage, but
that’s what makes this all fun, makes this all worth it. “You got it,” as I
dialed the phone.
Fun fact: CHOP has
great omelets. I’m serious. Not great for a hospital, great for anywhere. I
actually sought out and thanked the person who made it. His name is Mark.
Thanks again Mark. Breakfast, as per usual, arrived timely, was hot and
delivered with pride and kindness. So…she ate, she’s happy, and she’s sleepy,
let’s make this alone time. I closed the door to the hallway, turned down the
lights and went to pull the shades (stop it). She was snoring before I reached
the window. Nice. If anyone’s earned a nap, she has; what a soldier she’s been.
What a mom she already is. What a hero she is to us both. I helped myself to
the rest of her omelet. Wow. Good stuff.
Sleeping in the
hospital was…there is no sleeping in a hospital. A series of drift-offs, nods, napper-do’s,
dips and dozes, but nothing which constitutes sleeping. I’m not complaining. I’m not a sleeper anyway, never have been. We
could’ve been at the Four Seasons with ear-plugs and blackout shades. I wasn’t sleeping, no way. A nap though; a
nap never hurt anyone.
Napping in the hospital
was…there’s napping at the hospital, sure, but it’s all about intel gathering
and a precise plan of attack, because a hospital room is a battery of different
sounds. IV done? Beep, beep, beep.
Automatic blood pressure taken? Honk, honk, honk. Time for meds? Knock, knock, knock followed
by the midday heaviness of a fashionable clog clomping under foot at 4AM. And then there are the fetal monitoring
devices. CHOP must have stock in JBL, Kenwood, Bose or Beats, because the
monitors hide what are clearly concert quality acoustic devices being run by
multiple amps. Let me paint you a picture: you’re at Ozzy Ozbourne’s sound
check and he’s blowing directly into the microphone while scratching it with
his black fingernails at just a decibel short of jet engine volume. The kicker
is, when the monitor doesn’t like what the little fella is doing with his
heartrate, Ozzy decides to scream at full volume followed by a rush of nurses
into the room to listen to his latest hit while reading the lyrics off of a
never ending roll of paper. It was so startling that I may have peed a little
bit on more than one occasion from the sheer force of the sound waves. Little
did I realize how much louder a room devoid of those sounds could be, but I’m
jumping ahead.
If you haven’t
watched Bojack Horseman on Netflix, and you’re looking for something to watch,
give it a try. I decided to watch a few episodes on the old iPad, hopefully to
be negotiated into catching a few minutes of sleep while momma bear is zonked.
Looking back, I swear the fetal monitors were affixed to my eyelids. I remember
feeling that wave of sleepiness, the conditions were right and I was in a
comfortable enough position to doze off when I hear Ozzy warming up. OK, no big
deal, the little guy has been having decelerations since we got here, just
relax. After what seemed like 30 seconds, the next deceleration hit. Settle
down, he’s done this multiple times before.
He’s fine, maybe he’s settling in after a big breakfast. No sooner did I
lower my head back down to pillow level when the third deceleration hit. I was
standing at this point, my eyes affixed to the monitor, my ears picking up
every sound. As if he was cued, the fourth deceleration hits as I’m staring at
the monitor when in marches the cavalry.
The
nurse walks into the room, heading straight for the fetal monitor, followed
closely by Drs. Johnson and Ntoso. Dr. Johnson is of average build, wears
glasses, great mustache and grey hair, typical appearance of a man aged around
60-65 years old. His physical appearance is where typical stops and, like the
other doctors on our team, extraordinary begins. Dr. Johnson started the
Special Delivery and the Fetal Diagnosis and Treatment units 14 years ago. The
boss is here…on a Saturday. He’s what medical directors should be; in this I
found oodles of comfort. His personality is somewhat dry, with an overwhelming
understanding of what he’s built and what he knows, but he has a sense of humor
that is as welcomed as it is unexpected – this is our second run-in with him today,
the first being a follow-up ultrasound. On a Saturday! “Hello,” he says with a
wry smile which does a decent job of masking his concern so as to not incite
panic, “what’s the little guy trying to tell us?” “I’m not sure what he’s
trying to say, but I’m not doing this all day,” booms Dr. Ntoso in her
home-town Haitian accent, “good morning, I’m Dr. Ntoso, please call me
May-Ange, and it’s nice to meet you!”
Dr. Ntoso is a mix
of all good things I've grown to love about physicians. She gains command of
her audience without effort or smugness, she exudes confidence with great
humility and seems to love almost unconditionally. Yes, I said love. I don’t think the word
“like” means the same to her that it means to most of us. Dr. Ntoso can “like”
your shoes, but I don’t think she can “like” people. People, to her, are to
love, we’re all God’s children, and I firmly believe that is why she became a
doctor. She has the face and energy of a much younger doctor, but her command
and composure betray her as they tell the story of a seasoned medical
professional with far too much talent and ability to go unchallenged. She is
much shorter than I am (99% are), she’s
not afraid of hugs and when she speaks you hope its a long sentence because her
accent is a treat to hear. “I counted 4 decels in less than 5 minutes plus he
had three prior to the cluster making it 8 in 30 minutes,” I told the doctors
since A. Helping in a medical setting makes me feel comfortable and B. Kel will
hopefully focus on my words rather than my increasingly nervous body language.
“Yeah, we counted about the same,” says Dr. Johnson, “give us a minute, we’ll
be right back.”
I know everyone
likes to think and say they thrive under pressure or during a crisis, but I do.
I love pressure and the hyper-focusedness
it brings, but rarely does life call for that sort of thing. HA! This
isn’t a rough touch football game. There’s no putt to sink on the 18th hole.
Pressure situations apply to sports, betting and anything not involving your
wife and kid. These are unchartered waters. I’m not sure what to do way out
here; alone, afraid, small. Praying to whatever god has time to listen. One of
them, all of them, any of them? “Please....please. I can’t be here without
them. I can’t lose my family, not now, we’re supposed to watch him grow up
together.” Wave after wave it just beats
on you, the utter helplessness of it, the terror of not knowing, the gravity of
it all. Just lose it, they’ll understand, break down, it’s ok, no one blames
you, it’s a tough situation. Nope...what are you doing?. They need you. You’re
not going dark when the light is right around the bend; fought too hard already
to let it get out of hand now. Man up, bitch, and compose yourself before you
turn around, you big dummy.
My head panned from
the door to my indomitable wife and, right then, I realized my strength was
only a blip compared to hers. “They’ll be back to take you,” I said, “I’m right
here babe, we’re ready. This is a piece of cake compared to the past 3 months.”
No way she just bought that. “Figures...of course this would happen right after
I eat my first meal in three days. Nothing easy,” Kel says sounding nervously
exasperated with a touch of excitement. Excitement?! Are you serious?! Thinking
about it now, I understand why she was excited. My wife was going to meet our
son today, regardless of the outcome, she was going to meet him and that was
enough to squash the panic and allow for excitement. If someone was going to
disembowel me with a machete after stabbing my spinal cord with a slasher-flick
sized sharp, I’d be the wrong excited. New shorts excited. Speaking of the monster needle thing: Kel
eating breakfast allowed me to be in the OR for the C-section since
anesthesiologists don’t like intubating mommies with full tummies. SCORE! At least I can be terrified and WATCH instead
of being terrified outside waiting. Can you imagine? I mean, no, really, can
you imagine having to wait outside through that! My sincerest appreciation for your courage
and resolve if you were the one waiting.
“Wait here,” says
the nurse, “and put these on.” Wait where!? Didn’t I just explain the whole
“waiting” thing!? “Once your wife is prepped and ready we’ll bring you back.”
Normally I would’ve made the connection but today I was reading into every word
uttered, inflected voice, eye contact; body language. Nothing cryptic or underlying with the nurse.
Of course this would happen 10 minutes before her shift ends; she wasn't subtle
about it. Not unprofessional, but not aware that her hour being late could be
our finest hour, or our darkest. She tore the final piece of paper from the
fetal monitor before striding to the hallway without an afterthought of how she
just left me there, waiting. No more
Ozzy. No more blood pressures. Gone are the IV pumps, down the hall with my
family. All of those noises meant that my family was safe and here, with me,
not in a cold operating room with strangers.
As I slipped into the coveralls with my Jaws shirt on, black gym shorts
and my electric blue sneakers I couldn't hear myself think. I couldn't hear
myself at all. A “thunderous silence” had only been known to me as an example
of oxymoron in high school- I have a new-found emotion for how much noise the
quiet can bring.
Who doesn't yearn
for those days when mom would give you a bath, towel you off comparing your new
smell, or lack of the collection of smells from a day in the life, to a flower
or something carrying as such a fresh, clean scent? One step further, mom helps
you into your favorite footie pajamas and tells you to watch TV until she
finishes delousing your siblings. Remember way back when? I don’t really have a
specific memory as much as I do a general feeling of comfort and contentment.
While footie pajamas are no longer an option (one size may fit MOST) my mom
still is. My mother can be an accountant, book-keeper, restaurant proprietor or
a circus clown and one thing will always be abundantly clear: she’s a
professional mother first and everything else is a hobby. Somehow she knew to
be in the state, right down the road, instead of two plus hours away. Somehow
she knew to get to the room right before I was beckoned to the OR. Somehow she
trusted her son, a third of her entire life’s body of work, to not only be
the man she knows but to be the rock she
knows they need. My mom didn’t give me
comfort, she gave me strength, she gave me what I needed not what I wanted;
vintage Murph. If I didn't know any better I’d say she was sizing me up to
convince herself one last time that I had “the stuff”. A brief, nervous
interaction between me, my mom and my other mom, Jo, preceded what would be the
longest walk of my life. This is my last walk before it all changes. One foot
in front of the other, big fella...and away...we...go…
Cold. The OR is ice
cold. Thank God. I mean, I’m sorry for my half-naked wife, the petite nurses
and anyone else who was cold in there, but I dig the cold and I didn't need
another reason to sweat. The OR is roughly the size of of an old-school Wawa,
devoid of all the treats and the year-round Thanksgiving palette. I suppose
ORs intentionally have two visual
distinctions: surfaces that reflect light and surfaces that absorb it. Painted flat-white walls coupled with faded
linens and gowns washed 200 times, bright stainless steel furniture and
instruments reflecting the lumens of light, monitors and technologies only
found here. I entered through the side of the room, Kel perpendicular to my
position on her stainless steel Tempurpedic and beyond her, another door
labeled “Resuscitation Room” with a masked face looking through the letters at
me. Thanks guys, couldn't have guessed what that room was for, appreciate
you’re leaving nothing to the imagination. Well, if they have a specific room
for it, they must have a lot of practice. Still, made me uneasy because I know
kids have died in there; angels now watching over MY son. He’ll be an angel
someday, but not today. Today he’s Rocky Balboa, and he’s going to shock the
world.
Busy little bees,
all over the place. Busy little bees working at a frantically controlled pace. The cast
consisted of: Dr. Ntoso, Dr. Johnson, both whom you've met, the
anesthesiologist, the first-assistant
NP, a scrub nurse, a circulating nurse, the OR manager, the chaplain, and the
resuscitation team in aforementioned room (4-6 people, tough to remember). I
sat down next to my wife in a narrow space, right next to her head, over her
left shoulder, with the anesthesiologist standing to my back right, studying a
monitor with monitors on it. IVs running, oxygen flowing, huge blue curtain separating
us from Rocky up and ready; I can hear them counting the surgical equipment.
Kel and I didn't say much to each other, mostly looks or some silliness to
break the gravitas. We talked about this a hundred times. We've watched
educational videos. We already got out what we needed to get out. We knew today
would take all that we had left to give and that we’d mortgage more if it meant
we stayed a family. Kel was as cool as a cucumber, eerily so. I mean, she cries
at commercials, but right now, Rock-o and Kel have some serious moxie. Some
serious, serious, moxie.
“Baby’s out. 11:39,”
recites Dr. Ntoso, her vocal clarity now muffled and low still giving orders.
And now, we wait. Again with the waiting; I hate waiting. I’m not only fighting
the urge to periscope the curtain but I’m also waiting for some not adult
sounds to come from somewhere, anywhere. Were they right? Was it over before it
started? Come on man, not after the Rocky speech. I’m just watching my wife, my
beautiful wife, because we’re seeing him together, and I’m a known cheater when
it comes to surprises. I figure if I watch her eyes I’ll know when she sees him
and then I’ll look. She loved him first, it was only fair she saw him first, if
only for a blink before I stole a peak of my son. I tried not looking...but the
kid starting screaming like any normal, wet, naked-in-front-of-a-room-of-
strangers person would. Babies on TV sound like they’re cold, or hungry - he
sounded legitimately pissed! Mommy and I looked at each other, not sappily or happily
or even with concern, with complete shock. That funny shock like when
great-grandma rips one out of nowhere when she saddles up her walker.
Unexpected, even a little gross, but completely hilarious. He was covered in
goop, obviously not pleased about it and was not expected to have pipes like
that.
We were asking for a whimper. We were answered with a roar.
