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Nurse Stories, Part Twelve: Do Something!! (By Louisiana M. Sandusky, R.N.) by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Friday, July 16, 2004
Rated "G" by the Author.
Sometimes even the best of efforts to save a human life doesn't happen, and the person ends up dying anyway, or, as in this case, they are left impaired in some way.
I wish I could turn back the hands of time, the time when my son (now 11 1/2 years old) first had meningitis. If something had been done sooner, maybe he wouldn't have brain damage or suffer from seizures, or have problems with his hearing or vision. He would be a normal, happy, laughing little boy without a care or a worry in the world.
He was but a baby then, just over a year, when he first took sick, and by the time we had gotten him to the hospital, he was already in critical condition, and he was already fighting for his very life. He had a fine, red-purple rash all over his small body, and he was burning with fever; and he was unconscious and was barely responding to the commands asked by the doctors and nurses, as they tested his reflexes. He lay there, limp, barely breathing, and not moving, and he looked like he was about to die.
I never felt so helpless as I did when I saw the medical team trying so hard to save my baby boy: they were poking him, prodding him, and sticking tubes into his body, and they were helping him with his breathing: he wasn't breathing as well as he should have been, and his color looked awful. He was also seizing, and it scared me to see his small body trembling uncontrollably on the bed, as the medical team tried their best to try to lower his fever, which had risen to dangerous levels. I remember standing there, thinking and shouting in my innermost brain: "DO SOMETHING!! Please don't let Johnny die; please help him somehow! Let him live!!"
But unfortunately, despite the best of intentions, Johnny did not fare so well from the bout of meningitis: it left him impaired, both visually and auditorally, and he also had "lesions" on his brain, from when the high fever cooked his brain somehow. He was also left with significant learning deficits, and when he recovered to the point to where he was well enough to leave the hospital several months later, he had to relearn how to do everything. He was a shell of his former self, and it really bothered me that nothing was done to prevent this type of damage from happening or to stop the deadly progression of the meningitis.
Today, at age 11 1/2, Johnny still has effects from the meningitis he had at the age of 1 1/2: he can't see but light and some shadows or very large print, and he can't hear without the help of hearing aids (without them he is quite deaf), plus he has a noticeable "stammer" to his speech when he talks. He also has some residual weakness on one side of his body, as he had suffered a stroke during his long hospitalization from the meningitis. He also has significant learning problems (but is since getting help every week from Sylvan, which has helped him bring up his grades dramatically and catch up nearly to that of his peers). He will probably always have these problems, but he has since learned to adapt, and he has since learned to take things as they come and try to overcome his problems. He also has seizures and is on anti-seizure medication, and his seizures are (somewhat) controlled. He will have several a year, but most of the time, the medication helps slow them down and cut back on the severity of the seizures.
Johnny also has to live with the effects of Duchenne's muscular dystrophy, so for him, life has been nothing but one big struggle after another. Yet he always remains so cheerful, and it takes me back to the time to where I am grateful for harping at the doctors and nurses to "DO SOMETHING!" when he was so sick with the meningitis. Maybe if they hadn't done something to save my child's life, he wouldn't be here today, still beating the odds that have been placed upon him. He is a Miracle Survivor, and nothing will stop him in living his life to the very fullest.
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I wish I could turn back the hands of time, the time when my son (now 11 1/2 years old) first had meningitis. If something had been done sooner, maybe he wouldn't have brain damage or suffer from seizures, or have problems with his hearing or vision. He would be a normal, happy, laughing little boy without a care or a worry in the world.
