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A Mothers Nightmare

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Submitted By jmehem
Words 1366
Pages 6
Jamie Heminover
Composition I
Matthew Bloom
June 15, 2015 “A Mother’s Nightmare” As a parent there are certain things that just the mere thought of sends a shudder of fear down my spine. Last August I found myself face to face with that kind of fear. My four year old son’s life hung in the balance as he lay in an intensive care hospital bed. He looked so frail; with wires, and tubes hooked all over him. The constant beeping of the monitors was unsettling. I felt completely helpless. What did I do in that moment? The only thing that I could do. I hit my knees, and I prayed to my higher power as hard as I ever have. I begged, I pleaded, and I negotiated for my own life; if only it would save his. It was the middle of August; I had just gotten Caden all signed up to start pre-school, and had enrolled myself into college. Life seemed like it was finally going in the right direction for us; aside from the cold I had been fighting that is. I could feel the heaviness in my lungs, and knew it was pneumonia. Which was confirmed when I went to the Urgent care clinic. I was sent home with some antibiotics, and it didn’t seem like a big deal at all. Caden; being the sweet child that he has always been; took it upon himself to take care of me. He would get me tissues or just sit with me while I rested. After a couple days had gone by I was feeling much better, but I could see the signs that Caden was getting the same cold that I had. The next day he really looked sick. When he turned down some of his favorite foods, and toys I knew he must really not be feeling well. He slept all day; then finally I made the decision to take him into the urgent care clinic. I assumed it would be a simple short office visit with an antibiotic prescription, and that we’d be back home within an hour at the most. I was dead wrong. Caden quickly got worse in the clinic. He seemed to be choking as he struggled to cough anything out, and breathe at the same time. Then the nurse took his vitals, and remarked that his blood pressure had spiked. She explained that his elevated blood pressure was a sign that he was in some type of distress. They sent him up to the pediatrics unit to be admitted for the night just to keep an eye on him, and get some fluids in him. The next morning he wasn’t any better so he couldn’t be released. Over the next two days it just got worse. He stopped swallowing completely, and had to have constant suctioning. Then after a while I took him down the hall to the toy room thinking that maybe it would perk him up. I watched as he stood in front of a big toy box deciding what to play with. I saw his knees buckle beneath him almost in slow motion. He crumpled to the floor, and the look in his eyes looked as if he was just as confused about why he collapsed as I was. That night another symptom tormented Caden as he would lay writhing in his hospital. He would scream out in agony, complaining that his hips, back, and legs hurt. They gave him Tylenol, and soaked him in the tub to try to ease his pain. Nothing was working. Finally I demanded that he be given morphine so he could have some relief from the pain. They agreed, and gave him some. That helped to ease his pain for the night. By the next day it was a nightmare. He couldn’t walk, stand, sit up on his own, smile, swallow, and only had minimal use of one of his arms while the other was just limp. The nurses woke me from the cot that I had been camped out on in his room at about 4 am to alert me that Caden was going to be transported to Iowa City, because they weren’t equipped to handle the severity of his symptoms anymore. I sat in the front seat of the ambulance as it sped down the highway. The sirens wailed at the traffic to move out of our way. It was starting to rain, and the clouds looked a dreary gray color. Caden slept through most of the ambulance ride. When we arrived; Caden was taken to the intensive care unit. He was immediately given an M.R.I., a chest x-ray, a spinal tap, and just about any test you could imagine. I sat there with a million thoughts going through my head as I waited for some kind of answer. A feeding tube was put in his throat because by this time; it had been about 4 days that Caden had gone without eating. I sat in his bed with him, and held him while we watched cartoons. I tried not to show Caden how terrified I was. It wasn’t long; a few hours I suppose. That’s when I faced my worst nightmare. A whole crew of doctors, and neurologists filled the room as they delivered the diagnosis. Acute Transverse Myelitis; of course at the time I had no idea what that even was. The doctors did their best to explain, but it might as well have been a foreign language because I had no idea what so many of the words even meant. I was able to understand that his immune system had identified his spinal cord as the mycoplasma pneumonia virus that it was trying to fight off, and attacked it. Caden’s case was unique especially due to the fact that instead of attacking one or two segments of the spine as is typical for transverse myelitis; his had attacked every segment. Stretching the entire length of his spinal cord, and into his brain. They explained to me that prognosis is usually not the best for people with T.M., and that even if he pulled through; it was unlikely that he’d ever walk again. T.M. strikes 4 out of every million people per year, of those 4 only 30% are children. Making Caden the living definition of someone that is “One in A million”. A statement he would prove to be true for so many reasons with his strength, and in his incredible recovery. After 6 weeks in the hospital; he was allowed to come home. He endured months of painful physical, and occupational therapy sessions, and it is by the grace of god that Caden can walk today. He continues to attend several physical therapy sessions every week to help with the severe limp that remains as well as with his right leg that he drags along as he walks. He will likely never be able to run or jump, but none of that seems important. It’s a blessing that he is alive, and can walk at all. I can’t say that life is back to normal now; just that it’s a new normal for us. Caden’s a local celebrity of sorts at Covenant medical center due to the rarity of his illness. Whenever we go in for his therapy sessions all of the nurses that pass in the hall always stop to chat with him. Caden even has a couple of favorite nurses himself. Some may question why god would let this happen to them and feel very angry at God for it, but I’d like to think that God actually did answer my prayers that day in the intensive care as I prayed on my knees at his bedside. I feel as though god spared his life, and allowed him to walk again. One thing that I am sure of is that I’ll never forget that day on my knees in his intensive care room. I learned how quickly life could slip away, and how important it is to let people know how much I love them because there just may not be another chance to.

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