September 19, 2010
It's after midnight into the second day. Rick and I race home to collect some cloths to take to the hospital in Springfield just in case we are there overnight. Rick grabbed you a pair of flannel pj pants you like to lay around watching football games in and a tee-shirt. I grabbed the lap top just in case you wake up and feel like getting on your facebook. Aaron is laying down in our bed with Ariel so she doesn't wake up missing us in the night. Since it was now Sunday we didn't have to worry about Aaron going to school. Rick figured we would probably be bringing you home sometime late Sunday or Monday morning. We just needed you to wake up.
Rick and I are flying down Highway 13 watching the sky for a helicopter to go over. We always see them fly over the house so we knew the route it would take paralleled with Highway 13. The cell phone rang and it was your cousin Sarah. She called to let us know that mom had just stopped by her house to tell her that your helicopter had just taken off. I didn't even know mom had been at the hospital, my brain is so close to frying. Rick said it would only take it about 10 minutes to travel the 30 miles to the hospital. I mention that you would want to be awake for that ride. You finally got to ride in a fast helicopter and your sleeping.
Sarah started talking real fast and and really loud, she mentioned that you had stopped by her house earlier that night and that you said you had taken some valiums that Matt gave you and had been drinking pretty heavy and was really drunk. She said you were acting tired while you were at her house and was trying to pass out on her couch but that she kept waking you up asking you what you were doing, saying you can't sleep there, telling you her kids are there sleeping and that she doesn't allow that stuff around her kids. She said you mentioned you had a date later and that you had to meet up with some guy. She told you that you couldn't stay there and needed to leave. She said Jaylynn and Jordan were in bed but in the next breath she says she's so mad at you because you were watching her kids for her. She said her and her 9 yr old son left her house to go across the street to Kathy's to get her nose re-pierced. She said time went by and it had been 45 minutes before she got back home. She said that you were gone and she realized her kids were home alone and expressed how angry she was at you for leaving her children home alone like that. She said that when you left her house that Ben saw you lite a cigarette and say "bye buddy" to him then walked down the street. Im confused by her rambling but I don't have time for this now. I guess I should have paid better attention and ask her more questions because this story will change in a mater of hours over and over like it's being rewritten each day to go along with your progress but you are all I can focus on.
Your helicopter flew over.
We arrived at St Johns emergency room. It's a weekend and the ER is packed. I'm not sure what time it is but I'm guessing around 1:00 a.m. There is someone checking people in so I tell them my son was just airlifted to their hospital, I gave them your name and within seconds they were taking us past the whole waiting area to another waiting room. A Chaplin met us in the room just like they did back in July when your little brother was in there from his wreck. He tells us that you are getting another CAT scan and once they were finished he would take us to you. I don't recall having a conversation with him but if I was going to describe him it would be very tall and nervous. I do recall him walking past our room several times and popping in to ask if we heard anything yet. Finally a nurse came and got us. She told us that we were waiting for a room in ICU and would be going to the 4th floor very soon. She led us back to the room they were holding you in until the move.
I really expected to see you waking up by now, or at least moving. You looked like you were cleaned up, the tape that was holding your respirator was new and not so tight, you now had a tube going up your nose. The nurse explained that it was to keep you from throwing up into your lungs. I asked her if you had woke up at all and she said not yet, that you were still the same. I remembered when your brother Aaron was in ICU with a brain contusion from his wreck back in July that the doctors told us when there is any kind of injury to the brain that the best medicine for healing is sleeping. I kept telling myself that you were healing and would be waking up very soon.
I noticed the right side of your head near your temple was bruising and there was a scrap. Your right cheek looked a little swolen too, these weren't there when you left the house that night. The doctor had just come in when I made this observation and he asked us what happened to you. Rick started telling him everything we knew, which wasn't very much... We were told you had taken valium, was pretty drunk, had been at your cousins house trying to pass out on her couch, you had mentioned you had a date later, Ben had watched you leave around 9:00 pm and then around 10:00 pm a woman found you unresponsive in a parking lot off the square in Bolivar, loaded you up and drove you to the hospital where they said you were dead, they revived you, took a CAT scan, said there was no brain damage but needed to air lift you to St Johns where we were right that moment.
The doctor told us to get on the phone to the Bolivar police and tell them they needed to get on this quickly because there wasn't enough drugs or alcohol in your system to do anything to you, especially to stop your heart or your breathing. He said he didn't know what happened to you but at that moment he said it wasn't looking good and he needed answers. He heard me mention about the bump on your head so he ordered another CAT scan to determine if the bump was something more serious. I noticed that your temple was twitching slightly but everyone said that was probably just a muscle spasm. I now believe that was your first seizure.
The results of the third CAT scan didn't give us any answers. You were not damaged, you were not waking up and there wasn't anything in your system to cause this type of reaction yet you were in a coma.
We finally got your room on the 4th floor in ICU. A place that was getting ready to play a major role in our life for the next 10 days. We got to travel up the elevator with you then were ushered right out so they could do their evaluation of you, order more blood work and hook a million other machines to you that I would become an expert on before this was all over. There were people all over the waiting room sleeping when we got in there. I saw people with sleeping bags & pillows laying on the floor, an elderly gentleman was sleeping on a love seat chair that was so uncomfortable. I could tell his son was the man sitting next to him because he would make sure the elderly man was covered up and tried to keep him as comfortable as possible.
Rick and I found a couple of seats over in a corner away from everyone which was fine for me. I don't think I could talk at that moment. I had been fighting a fear that was attempting to consume but I knew I couldn't break, you needed me to be strong but between you and me I was so scared out of my mind. I was mentally exhausted. I laid across two chairs to try and get my body to relax. I passed out until your name was called. I woke up from my nap to realty. It was finally time we could go back to your room and I nearly ran in anticipation of seeing you awake. It was long enough, hours had gone bysince 11 pm when the 15 yr old looking policeman knocked on my door, it was time for you to wake up.
You looked good, like you were just taking a little nap. I grabbed your hand and squeezed it and said "David, I'm here, wake up baby". Your warm and have a healthy glow. I just expect people in comas to look sick. Your nurse introduced herself and said your neurologist would make her rounds first thing in the morning and would be able to give us better answers once she has all your tests back. I'm hopeful that we are going to get a good report on you. You are David Sims, you are indestructible, you wreck cars and walk away, you crash your dirt bike into unmovable objects and laugh at some goober mistake you made that got you there, you don't die, you live to tell the most amazing stories that keeps everyone that knows you laughing so hard, you've been to the edge and back so many times that the edge is on a different continent than you. You also have a praying mama that knows you have a warrior angel watching out for you.
So now we wait and you sleep and the world plots.
No comments:
Post a Comment