It's hard to believe it's only been hours since this all began. I'm talking to Rick and telling him things I thought happened days ago and he's saying "Honey that was this morning". Time is such a fickled thing when the world is holding it's breath.
It's still Sunday, September 19th, one day after my birthday. I wonder how old I am. At the moment I can't do the math but I'm feeling very old and I'm scared but I don't dare say it out loud. I was told one time in church our words can bring life or death. We can say to a child you are worthless and kill their self worth or we can say you can do all things and birth possibility. I remember this and don't want to speak negativity about my son, he is going to wakeup, he's going to live and be amazing.
Your nurse comes in and is fluttering around the room taking your vitals. I ask her for a wash cloth and take my hairbrush out of my purse. You never let your hair become a tangled mess like this. I hate the tape that is wrapped around your head to help hold the respirator in place. She handed me the warm wash cloth and said "talk to him, he hears you".
I had tears in my eyes and ask how she knew you could hear me. She went on to explain that every coma patient when they wake up tell the staff or family things that was said or done to them while in the coma that they shouldn't know. They talk like they are standing back watching everything go on around them they know who came to see them, conversations other's had while they were in a coma. She said she knew for a fact you could hear us, especially me because I was mama. You would prove this a fact to me so many times during the next 10 days so I started talking to you, pouring my heart out, telling you what was going on, what the doctors were saying, what I was feeling, who came to see you, who was praying for you, how scared I was. I told you that I understand if you need to sleep to heal but I sure could use a sign from you that you are ok. I didn't know if you were in pain or what happened to you.
My imagination has gone in every direction on what happened to you last night. Did someone get high with you and then just dump you out on the side of the road when something went wrong? Were you just out for a walk and had a heart defect that dropped you to the ground? Most disturbing thought was when we were told that the person that found you said you were blue. They said you were dead. If I was driving by a dark parking lot at night and saw a dead person laying there, would I just load them up in my car & drive to the hospital or would I call 911? Did this person know what really happened to you? I need answers but I believed those answers would come when you woke up.
The first ICU doctor we saw verified we had no more answers to what happened to you before you came to the hospital. He seemed to be in a big hurry and just wanted to put the facts out there and move on. He told us this is what they knew at the moment, that whatever caused you to stop breathing was unknown but the fact that you went too long without oxygen to your brain was serious. He explained that a brain can receive some damage from just going five minutes without oxygen but in your case the severity of the damage they felt was caused from going extremely too long. Your brain at that moment wasn't able to preform life sustaining functions like breathing on your own. He said that if someone had just breathed 2 rescue breaths into you that you would have probably walked out of the hospital that night. Just 2 rescue breaths. I took CPR when I was a teenage lifeguard. I took it again when I had each one of you kids. Hospitals won't let us take you all home after giving birth these days without a CPR class. The last time I took it was the day I brought Ariel home after she was born. Sarah was with me and we talked about how many times we've had to learn this & that now we could teach this class. How long had you laid in that parking lot not breathing before these women found you? This doctor's final words to us before he left the room changed my life.
"Your son went too long without oxygen. He is probably brain dead and will never wake up".
I heard the words but my mind & my heart were screaming NOOOOOOOOO! This man did not know you, this man did not know this family, it's only been a few hours here and he's only seen you for a few minutes, this was not real and I was not going to believe this. It was too early to tell me this. He was just a doctor, he was just human, he was wrong!!!
He left the room and I broke down crying. Rick looked shell shocked. I think he was thinking the same thing I was. This was not real. I grabbed you and held on tight. I kissed your cheek and your forehead. I held your warm hand, felt your heart beat, watched you breath and knew in my heart you were not going to leave me. My heart was breaking, I couldn't breath, someone was behind me, it was Rick, he was crying and holding you and me both. I was soaking you with my tears. This was not happening. That doctor was wrong. You are not leaving me. I love you so much I just can't breathe, God please don't take him, not now, I can't do this.
It wasn't even daylight yet. How can they make a judgment call so quick?
We were asked to step out of your room and go back to the waiting room while they did a shift change. New nurses and doctors were coming to work. New ideas and new opinions where clocking in. I'm holding on to a thread of hope because the neurologist hadn't seen you yet.
While we were in the waiting room I got onto the laptop and went to my home away from home site to update my friends on what was going on and to ask for their thoughts and prayers for you. I didn't have much answers so I probably caused more confusion and worry. The important thing was they are good people with big hearts, they were praying and sending out their strength for you and for me. While I was asking for prayer from my friends, Rick was making a few phone calls to our family. What a dysfunctional family we have. I would later learn what you always tried to teach me when it came to the term family, that it's not always the ones that share our DNA.
I raised you to be very family oriented. I got this trait from my grandparents Gene & Vera Hargis whom I lovingly called Nana & Po. After they died I worked so hard trying to keep our family united. I felt it was so important that we still get together on Sundays after church. Everyone use to say that once mom was gone the family gathering place would be passed down to me since I'm the one that wanted it. I spent so much time trying to mend fences among them all that it's amazing we lasted as long as we did. Bub was constantly mad at Sarah for insulting Zach and swore they were never doing family get together's as long as she was there. It would take months to convince them that family was important and to just ignore Sarah's jealousy of Zach, this war began when Zach was just a baby, it wasn't going to end over Sunday dinner. Bub would tell me that Lorie's kids were all the drama in the family and that spiritually it was draining her, Scott refused to go over to mom's any more because of it. I finally convinced them to come back because it was important to me to carry on Nana & Po's tradition. We always did everything with the family, the whole lot of them. Your first cousins were more like your sisters. Since you were the only boy until Zach came a long, it was you with 4 girls tormenting and loving the daylights out of you. There was nothing they all wouldn't do with you or to you or for you. You were surrounded by Aunts, Uncles, Sister, Brother, Cousins, Niece, Nephews & Grandparents that you loved so much and didn't go a day without seeing them or talking to them because you were raised with that family tradition I held so dear.
Several events had happened in your life that were life changing. Your outlook and attitude was also changing. You would get angry and tell me to let the family go, it was all drama queens and gossip freaks that loved nothing more than to kick you when your down or leave you downing in your own blood. You never elaborated on what had you so riled up or who but you did say never to trust any of them and that all it takes to find out who your real family and friends were was to go through a life changing event in you life like when you were in jail and how hard this same family worked to get you there. I understand you now. I wish I had listened.
First life changing event for you was Lexi running off and leaving you with 2 small boys to raise on your own. That was a doozy. You had to step up and become a man real fast. While this is going on you had people telling you every dirty little detail of your wife as if they were enjoying kicking you while you were down. You know when you hear these words come out of someones mouth they are not your friend "I knew she was shooting up drugs but didn't want to tell you because it would hurt you" Especially when the people "she" was shooting up with were the very people who were telling you they didn't want to hurt you AND they were family. You were having to learn a lot of hard lessons fast.
Next life changing event was the Forth of July in the middle of night you were out with a buddy of yours and you both decided to go to the public pool, climb the fence and go swim. Yea I thought it was funny too but the police didn't. You got arrested and put on probation. While on probation you had to give a urine sample to be tested to make sure you weren't on drugs. You flunked because you had been smoking pot. You were tested again and flunked again for smoking pot so they were talking of sending you to prison. I freaked, you were not prison material. You weren't a bad person, you were trying to find your way in a crazy world while trying to bury your hurt and pain from losing the woman you loved more than anything. You put on your game face as if nothing hurt you but you can't wear a mask around me, I know you. I'm scared and I know you are scared. I also know pot levels your ADHD out. If they can just give the part of pot that helps people with ADHD without smoking it that would be a perfect scenario.
Next life changing event. It's October 2009, you're sitting in Polk County jail feeling broken. You know you can't continue in this direction, you have to do something to make a change in your life for your sons. You were accepting the fact that Lexi wasn't coming back. You still loved her but wanted more for your sons than the broken man you were becoming. That night Duncan was arrested and became your cell mate. You opened up to him and told him you were tired. He told you that you needed God in your life. The two of you stayed up all night long reading the bible and talking about your life. Before the sun rose that morning you knelt down and ask God to forgive you of your sins and invited Jesus into your heart. You were my born again man of God Christian son that I had been praying for your whole life to be saved. Later that day you called me to tell me the good news. "Mom guess what I did last night, I got saved" me "from what"? David "you know mom, I got saved by God"........ silence..... I think I nearly fainted. I was so excited and so filled with joy that I was scared I'd freak you out so I said, "I'm so proud of you baby". After I got off the phone from you I screamed as loud as I could.
After we were sent to the waiting room once again, Rick called your natural father Jerry. My heart sank when he had to make that call. I knew how much you wanted to see your dad and how heart broken you were that he never called or tried to make an effort to see you. It would take this event to bring him back to you. I knew you'd find a way.
The neurologist was there and wanted to talk to us. She was running an EEG test that measures brain waves. In short it lets us know how your brain is working. She is a little thing and she's blunt. I guess they all are.
Dr Zi in broken english ask if we knew what happened to you. We didn't know anything more than what they knew. She tells us that no one picks up a person believed to be dead in a parking lot, she said you call 911. She thinks there is foul play with the story where you were found. She speaks out loud what I had been thinking, that whoever dropped you off at the hospital knew you and knew what happened to you, they were lying.
Dr Zi told us the EEG wasn't good. There wasn't enough activity to sustain life. She raised your eyelid and showed us how your eyes were fixed, your pupils were tiny pin points and wouldn't react to light. My heart broke.
I think I cried a lifetime of tears in those few hours that morning. You were laying there looking so peaceful, so warm, so alive. I was at a dead end and unable to think, I needed strength, I needed to pray. I needed to turn you over to the higher physician and let Him take control.
My only problem was I was so emotional that I didn't even know how to pray. I've prayed my whole life and here I am, my son's life is on the line and I'm numb, I don't even know what to pray for.
I prayed for God to send us prayer warriors that knew what to pray for.
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