I very much consider where I live now home, but my parents house is still home too. I'm home at their house for the week—a week of chaos (7 adults, 5 kids, 2 dogs in a small house), staying up too late with my sisters, laughing until we almost pee our pants; a week coming home covered in salt and sand and sunscreen (nothing like a shower after a day at the beach). Tomorrow my cousins will come and we'll be at the beach from breakfast to dinner. We'll come home tired and sunburned and put the kids to bed. And then I won't go to my high school reunion.
I never committed to going or not going. There are a few people I'd really like to see, friends I've almost kept in touch with over the past twenty years. There are some people I'm curious to see and find out what they are doing. There are a couple of people I don't want to see, but mostly there are people I don't really care about either way. And I don't know who knows. Do you have kids? How old? I don't stumble over these questions as much as I used to, but I don't like answering them. I get weary thinking about it. It's easier to walk into a room full of strangers who I know don't know than a room full of people I once knew who may or may not know.
A one-time friend stopped by two years ago as we were getting ready for the parade. I was pregnant with Kathleen and just over 6 months out from Henry's death. I had walked on the beach that morning with my cousin's baby, enjoying her little body snuggling against my chest as we walked by the waves, but also lamenting that I never got Henry to the beach, that he never saw the ocean I sang to him about so many times. Mostly, I was having a good day, I was with my family. I was safe and content and I didn't want to break that by saying I had a little boy and he died. I didn't know if she knew, but I just didn't want to have that conversation right then. As she was leaving, my sister told her. I haven't seen or heard from her since. And this bothers me more than I realized.
A good friend of my sister's who had lost touch with her for a while got in touch with her back in March. They talked for a long time and they caught up on news. He emailed me after they talked and we've played Scrabble on Facebook and chatted there. He didn't shy away, but you never know who will.
There are plenty of people out there who don't know. And I don't feel like telling that story. I don't feel like agreeing that I have my daughter now but pointing out that I still miss and grieve for my baby boy. And, because I overanalyze things, I've thought about this and debated whether I should go because I should tell this story, because I shouldn't be a coward. Ten years ago, I didn't go to my reunion either. It fell on 4th of July weekend. I was here, but so were my cousins and friends who came to visit. I decided I'd rather spend the evening with them. That's what I'm doing this time too. There are kids to settle, games to play, cookies and ice cream to eat. My sisters and I will stay up too late even if we're tired; my mom will almost fall asleep playing a game with us. We'll all finally agree to go to bed saying we'll regret staying up so late when the kids are up in a few hours. And we will be tired, but we won't regret it—and we won't stop doing it.
Right now there is a cool breeze coming up from the harbor. The air is dry, the sun shining. My dad is running errands and all the others are at the playground. Kathleen went down for an early nap and I'm enjoying a little quiet and breathing deeply the ocean air.
It's good to be home.
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home. Show all posts
Friday, July 2, 2010
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The day before
As I was getting Kathleen ready to go to her 1 year checkup this morning, I realized that two years ago we were getting Henry ready to go to the pediatrician too. Hers was a scheduled visit, planned months ago. His was a nervewracking, maybe we should have gone to the ER the night before but I was too scared to take him in kind of affair.
Last year, I revisited, relived, processed, and otherwise dealt with all of the things I went through with Henry during his brief, intense life. All except the very end.
I don't like to remember the last night we had Henry home. He got sick so very quickly. Earlier in the day, the visiting nurse had been by. Henry was looking good. Heart sounded good, lungs sounded good, no fever . . . by 10 PM he had a fever. I gave him Tylenol. Then he started throwing up. I stopped his feeding pump. Then he got diarrhea. We changed the crib. We changed his pjs. Again and again and again. And then we gave up and just tried to keep up with a clean diaper.
This perhaps would have been a good time to go to the ER. I couldn't do it. I was paralyzed by what he germs might pick up there. I was paralyzed by the idea of going back to a hospital less than 48 hours after being discharged from a 3 month and 3 day stay. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and I couldn't do it.
I called the pediatrician. I called the nurses at Children's. I had the pediatricians and one of the Fellows at Children's talk. We agreed I'd give him ibuprofen for his fever and bring him to the pediatrician first thing in the morning.
He had a fever.
This is what bothers me. I knew, had seen too many times, how a fever affected him. How his heart rate went up and everything fell apart from there. It was one of the things I expected to have to argue with doctors and nurses about. I expect them to tell me his fever wasn't that high, it wasn't that big a deal. It is for my son, I'd have to explain. But I didn't. He had a fever and all I could think was We just got home; I can't go back to the hospital.
The next morning it was snowing, but we got out and down the road to the pediatrician. This time when they wanted us to go to the hospital, I agreed, resigned, to go for tests: EKG, echo . . . As we drove, the snow got heavier and Henry's breathing deteriorated. I was sitting in the back with him and I just watched as each breath became more labored. I could do nothing. The highway was down to 40 mph; we were going 70 passing state troopers.
***
In the ER, they struggled for a long time to get a line in him. They were going to move him up to the PICU, but suddenly didn't like the looks of him, didn't want to move him anywhere. They pulled out what looked like a drill and got immediate access in his leg. That's new. Haven't seen that before, I thought.
***
The bearded doctor came out to tell me they had him on a ventilator. I started to cry.
It's just what he needs right now, he told me.
It's two weeks minimum to get him off it, I thought. I still believed he would make it. I still dreaded another hospitalization. It seems funny now—and not.
***
Sometime that night—time was a blur—Brian's mom suggested we go and get some rest. We had not slept in over 24 hours, and the night before that had been punctuated with a relentless med schedule, and the night before that spent sleeping upright in a straightbacked chair or on the hospital floor. She stayed with him. We went home and packed some things for our return. We had been in bed for less than a hour when the phone rang. How long does your heart stop when your baby is in the hospital and the phone rings late at night?
***
Back at the hospital in the parent waiting area, we tried to sleep. Brian woke me up in the wee hours of the morning. He had what Henry had. He was spent, weak, wrung out. I called his parents to pick him up. And I waited.
I didn't know it would be the last day.
***
I don't think about that last night at home with Henry or even that last night of back and forth between home and the hospital.
Mostly I remember that he came home. He did not die in Boston. He made it home. We carried him through the kitchen door where we brought him home as a newborn. We put him back in his swing and watched him noticing the mirror above it. We all slept in this house that we call home for one night.
It always feels like one of Henry's little gifts to me that he made it home. Not for long, no, not nearly long enough, but he got here. And that means so much to me.
Last year, I revisited, relived, processed, and otherwise dealt with all of the things I went through with Henry during his brief, intense life. All except the very end.
I don't like to remember the last night we had Henry home. He got sick so very quickly. Earlier in the day, the visiting nurse had been by. Henry was looking good. Heart sounded good, lungs sounded good, no fever . . . by 10 PM he had a fever. I gave him Tylenol. Then he started throwing up. I stopped his feeding pump. Then he got diarrhea. We changed the crib. We changed his pjs. Again and again and again. And then we gave up and just tried to keep up with a clean diaper.
This perhaps would have been a good time to go to the ER. I couldn't do it. I was paralyzed by what he germs might pick up there. I was paralyzed by the idea of going back to a hospital less than 48 hours after being discharged from a 3 month and 3 day stay. I was exhausted and overwhelmed and I couldn't do it.
I called the pediatrician. I called the nurses at Children's. I had the pediatricians and one of the Fellows at Children's talk. We agreed I'd give him ibuprofen for his fever and bring him to the pediatrician first thing in the morning.
He had a fever.
This is what bothers me. I knew, had seen too many times, how a fever affected him. How his heart rate went up and everything fell apart from there. It was one of the things I expected to have to argue with doctors and nurses about. I expect them to tell me his fever wasn't that high, it wasn't that big a deal. It is for my son, I'd have to explain. But I didn't. He had a fever and all I could think was We just got home; I can't go back to the hospital.
The next morning it was snowing, but we got out and down the road to the pediatrician. This time when they wanted us to go to the hospital, I agreed, resigned, to go for tests: EKG, echo . . . As we drove, the snow got heavier and Henry's breathing deteriorated. I was sitting in the back with him and I just watched as each breath became more labored. I could do nothing. The highway was down to 40 mph; we were going 70 passing state troopers.
***
In the ER, they struggled for a long time to get a line in him. They were going to move him up to the PICU, but suddenly didn't like the looks of him, didn't want to move him anywhere. They pulled out what looked like a drill and got immediate access in his leg. That's new. Haven't seen that before, I thought.
***
The bearded doctor came out to tell me they had him on a ventilator. I started to cry.
It's just what he needs right now, he told me.
It's two weeks minimum to get him off it, I thought. I still believed he would make it. I still dreaded another hospitalization. It seems funny now—and not.
***
Sometime that night—time was a blur—Brian's mom suggested we go and get some rest. We had not slept in over 24 hours, and the night before that had been punctuated with a relentless med schedule, and the night before that spent sleeping upright in a straightbacked chair or on the hospital floor. She stayed with him. We went home and packed some things for our return. We had been in bed for less than a hour when the phone rang. How long does your heart stop when your baby is in the hospital and the phone rings late at night?
***
Back at the hospital in the parent waiting area, we tried to sleep. Brian woke me up in the wee hours of the morning. He had what Henry had. He was spent, weak, wrung out. I called his parents to pick him up. And I waited.
I didn't know it would be the last day.
***
I don't think about that last night at home with Henry or even that last night of back and forth between home and the hospital.
Mostly I remember that he came home. He did not die in Boston. He made it home. We carried him through the kitchen door where we brought him home as a newborn. We put him back in his swing and watched him noticing the mirror above it. We all slept in this house that we call home for one night.
It always feels like one of Henry's little gifts to me that he made it home. Not for long, no, not nearly long enough, but he got here. And that means so much to me.
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