It was the first and last football game of Aaron's mighty might, middle school, high school and college career that I will ever miss.
I told the team that I was a Christian and was praying for my son's healing, that I do believe in miracles but I also knew you were suffering, I'm anilitical and I am also realistic. My plan was this. As long as you improved I was standing strong with you because this was your way of telling me you were fighting to stay here on earth. If you started going downhill on your progress that was also you talking to me telling me you fought the good fight but you was ready to go home to heaven. Rick and I saw how difficult it was for you to breathe. Even though the respirator was breathing with you we saw you struggle. Your heart was giving out and I just broke. I saw all these signs but what they were really asking me to do was impossible. No parent should ever be asked to make these decisions and yet here we are.
By the next day on Saturday your doctor came in and told us he thought he figured out what was causing your illregual heart rate, fluid on your heart, he needed to do an echo. I asked if there was anything that could be done if indeed there was fluid and he said they could adjust your medication but there were so many battles upon battles we were fighting that this was just something you didn't need. I had requested a feeding tube for you a couple days before that because I could tell you were losing a lot of weight. The doctors agreed and had started giving you what looked like babyfood into a tube. Your coloring was improving some but there were dark circles under your eyes and you were starting to experience myoclonic seizures. They were mild and would go undetected but I was with you 24/7 and I saw them. Sometimes they were just a slight twitch at your right temple, other times you eyes would open a little or just one eye. The first time this happened I thought you were waking up. I freaked out crying and kept telling you to open your eyes, please just wakeup and show them your OK. When the doctor told me you weren't really opening your eyes that it was really a seizure I hated him but I respected him for not lying to me. By Saturday night everything changed and I was forced to really look at you. I didnt know at that moment but I was getting ready to go to war against you because what you wanted and what I wanted were not lining up.
The doctors told us that you were so strong but your body was just so exhausted. The respirator had been in for 7 days and caused their own complications. Your lungs were rattling which is a sign that pneumonia was setting in. Your heart was developing fluid around it and this caused a strain. We could see it in your face, your coloring was fading, you were grey and sweating, your breathing felt like you were panting, I was losing you. Even if you woke up I was losing you and my heart was shattering. I sat with Rick and decided to speak what was in my heart. I told him I felt it was time to take the respirator off you, not to let you die but to give you a fighting chance to live. I believed you would continue to breathe on your own without the machine but the wear and tear of this machine forcing you to breath was breaking you. In my head if you didn't breathe we could turn it back on and try something else. Rick agreed with me so on Sunday we met with the team that included all your doctors and nurses that had been on staff just for you this whole time and told them what we were wanting. They agree with us but needed to talk to me about what if you didn't make it.
"shut up shut up shut up"
The team told me at that moment they were not allowed to talk to me about this until I mentioned removing life support. You were signed up to be an organ donor and it was up to me on if your wishes were honored but if I said no, no one would question me or pressure me. My first instinct is to scream NO!! No you will not cut up my baby, he's beautiful and perfect, he is not some lab rat to play God with, save HIS life not someone else's!
I remember the day you came home so excited and said "guess what I just did". In David speak that could mean anything from blowing up a city, dying the cat purple, putting wheels on the riding lawn mower so you could cut doughnuts in the rain, driving your car into the lake, parking your car next to the bonfire you built out of a full grown dead tree that you thought was such a good idea until the trunk burned up and the tree fell over on your car... So yes, "guess what I just did" meant buckle up, we are getting ready to go through a series of loops and turns but it will be an adventure for you. I asked what you did and you replied, "I'm going to save lots of life's" you went on to tell me you were getting another driver's license made because your last one was in your billfold at the bottom of the lake from when you jumped off a cliff to save a man who had just fallen off the same cliff. Your phone was also with the fishies but one little boys daddy was alive because of you so it was worth losing them, besides you were already a hero in my eyes. You said while getting your license the lady at the DMV asked you if you wanted to be an organ donor. You pulled out your new driver's license and showed me the little heart on the bottom left corner. The same picture the doctors are showing me while confirming you did sign up. I told them I knew about it but my head was screaming again, that loud ringing was in my ears. You are not going to die, I'm not signing this so you can die! I'm doing this so you can live.
I told the team that I was a Christian and was praying for my son's healing, that I do believe in miracles but I also knew you were suffering, I'm anilitical and I am also realistic. My plan was this. As long as you improved I was standing strong with you because this was your way of telling me you were fighting to stay here on earth. If you started going downhill on your progress that was also you talking to me telling me you fought the good fight but you was ready to go home to heaven. Rick and I saw how difficult it was for you to breathe. Even though the respirator was breathing with you we saw you struggle. Your heart was giving out and I just broke. I saw all these signs but what they were really asking me to do was impossible. No parent should ever be asked to make these decisions and yet here we are.
"Mrs Allen do you agree that if your son stops breathing that we have permission to donate your son's organs"
I needed time. I needed a whole life time. I needed for you to wakeup, I needed you! "Talk to me baby, I'm so scared"
I felt so alone, it was like floating through space billions of miles away from all living things. I knew everyone waited for me to make a decision, just like when I made the decision to have you. I was told after I basically died giving birth to Lacy that my body could not handle childbirth. My heart couldn't handle it and nothing worked. I didn't dialte, I just go into labor, go though unbearable pain, stop breathing, my heart stops then emergency c-sections are performed and my heart gets jump started. I was advised to not have any more children. Then 5 years later I found out I was pregnant with you. Our doctor told us once it was established by me that no medical abortion was ever going to happen that they would be treating this as high risk but were going to monitor my pregnancy as close to your due date as they could get without me actually going into labor, then they would schedule surgery and you would be born. It was a good plan that didn't involve me in unbelievable pain or dying so it was a win win. Choosing for you to live was easy, now it felt like I was being forced in choosing for you to die. I wonder why God is doing this to me. I tell Him that I'm not choosing this, He is and if your body is too broken to live and if God was choosing not to heal you then it was He that was choosing for you to die. My choice was for you to live, my choice was always for you to live. I think maybe I'm a little angry at God.
It's Sunday morning when I signed the papers and things went into overdrive. If I could step out of my body and explain the whole process of what happens when a patient is about to become an organ donor I'd say it is one that requires organizational skills on a level I don't possess. There were planes landing with teams within an hour to do blood work. National data bases at work looking for people who were matches & were the most urgent care. I got scared because it felt a little weird with all this going on around us and you are laying there alive. I just stayed there by your side praying for a miracle. I hadn't slept for a while at this point so I was getting a little punchy. I think I apologized to 20 people that day because I would chew someone out for just looking like they were forgetting my son was real & not a organ harvest. You were very alive. I know they were doing their jobs and there was a time frame going on. I just kept looking at you and wondering why this was happening. You are so young and so beautiful. You are my baby and I was praying and questioning God about everything. Add a million other questions in that list and you still wouldn't reach the end of my "whys." First thing that happens to you is they take blood. Vials and vials of blood. At one point the ringing in my ears is so loud because so much blood has been drawn I feel like you shouldn't have very much left. I kept telling myself they know what they are doing, they aren't going to kill you because you have something very important they need if you so choose to give it to them. Your life sustaining organs.
I learned that there are different levels of organ donors. Most people die unexpectedly and time destroys the vital organs like heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. For those organs to be donated means they were in an operating room upon time of death or near death. Out of the world of organ donors only 1% are this level of donors. Only 1% save lives. You are that 1% which makes you very valuable to keep you as healthy as possible while teams all over the United States going through their database finding a match by need. Who isn't going to make it another day without a liver or lung, how quick can they have them ready for surgery, planes are readied to take off the second the word is given to take organs as quick as possible to their new body. Teams of surgeons are flown in, 2 per organ. They have exactly 15 minutes upon death to retrieve the organ before those organs go bad. 15 minutes to safely remove 2 lungs, 2 kidneys, 1 liver etc. All this is explained to me by the organ coordinator as they draw more blood. 2 large vials will accompany each organ and will be given to the new body. It's fascinating but it's all happening so fast. I just signed the papers 1 hour ago. You are not going to die, they are doing all this for nothing but I don't want to be the one that tells them this. I just want everyone to go away and let me talk to you. I need answers only you can give me. Time has become something I fear.
"Please baby wake up!!! Time is drowning me, it's holding me under and I can't breathe'.
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