Being a father, there are those times where I wish I could prevent my child from innement harm or danger. I can't tell you how many times where I have found myself in the waiting room at a hospital, worrying whether my child was going to survive or die. It is an experience I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
One of those times happened when my daughter was in the hospital for a sudden asthma attack. It was Christmas Day. Earlier in the day, Ronee', who was just eight, complained of a bad headache, but she (and us) dismissed it as we plunged into the excitement of the holiday. We delighted in hearing the children's squeals aa they dove into the brightly-colored packages that Santa'd left for them. Even Ronee', with her headache, joined in the fun.
There was no inkling of what was to happen later that day, none at all.
That afternoon, as we gathered for our meal around the picnic table, enjoying each other's company and counting our blessings, Ronee' started wheezing as she went into one of her asthma attacks. She took a hit off her inhaler, hoping the medication would open her constricted airway in moments. It didn't. Her breathing sounded bad. She tried again. No such luck.
It wasn't long before her usually beautiful bronze-gold face turned a sickly pale. She was now literally gasping for air. We knew that this was no ordinary asthma attack, that she needed immediate medical attention. Just as I was to get up, so I could take Ronee' to the van (and to the emergency room), she collapsed to the floor in a heap, scaring us all halfway to death.
I hobbled to the phone on my crutches, where I punched 9-1-1 and asked for an ambulance. While I was on the phone, I heard my wife, who is a nurse, and who was with Ronee', yell, "SHE ISN'T BREATHING!!" Suddenly, the situation took on a whole new sense of urgency.
While my wife worked over Ronee', begging her to start breathing again, I paced nervously at the door, waiting for the ambulance to show up at our place. Our Christmas celebration was quickly unraveling into one of disaster and heartbreak.
The ambulance arrived at our place. The paramedics banged on the door; my wife let them in while I tried to keep the other children from seeing the nightmare that was taking place in the kitchen. Ronee' lay on the floor, lifeless, her skin the color of dead meat. It scared the living hell out of me as I watched my wife (and the paramedics) try to revive our daughter.
It wasn't long before Ronee' was rushed out the door by a paramedic, who was pushing on her chest and breathing into her mouth and nose. Her head was hanging back as if she had passed out or died, and her arms and legs dangled loosely, like a rag doll's. She looked terrible. After she was placed into the back of the ambulance, the EMTs hopped in and shut the doors, and told the driver in the front to floor it if the child was to have any chance of making it--alive--to the hospital. The child was in trouble, serious trouble.
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In the E.R., the medical team got Ronee' back. Ronee' had a pulse and was breathing (with help), but she was not out of the woods yet, not by a long shot. Her blood pressure was alarmingly high (something like 150/120), and she seemed quite out of sorts. She responded sluggishly to the commands given by the medical team, and she was quite ill. We had no clue as to what was going on, and we fretted and worried constantly, wondering if we would ever see her alive again.
An hour later, Ronee' was taken to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit). She was alive, but her condition remained critical. She was now breathing with assistance via a respirator, and she was plugged up to tubes and monitoring equipment. She looked a little better than she had when she'd first collapsed back at the house, but not much.
We took turns sitting by her hospital bed, hoping she would wake up and open her eyes, but she didn't. She lay there, still as a stone. We held her hands, stroked her arms, smoothed back her dark hair from her damp forehead, and kissed her cheeks, but none of this elicited any response from her. Her vital signs were still not good, and her B/P was still high. Something was most definitely wrong with Ronee', but as to what, nobody (not us, not even her attending doctors or nurses) had any answers.
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Suddenly, without warning, her B/P shot up even higher, and Ronee' began shaking violently, as if going into a seizure. The seizure was so violent the entire bed shook. About the time her primary pediatrician, Dr. Emmons, came into the room, Ronee' 's eyes had rolled up into the back of her head, and her face was turning black from lack of oxygen. In the fog that had settled in front of my eyes, I could hardly make out the scene in front of me. All I could see were the backs of the doctors and nurses surrounding our daughter's bedside, and occasionally, a flailing arm or leg, as Ronee' continued to writhe in her seizure. I heard the urgent voice over the hospital PA system, saying: "Code Blue, PICU, six west, room four-twenty-five, bed #1! Code Blue, PICU, six west, room four-twenty-five, bed #1, STAT!! All help to room four-twenty-five, STAT, pediatric Code Blue!!" It took a few minutes to realize that the call was for Ronee', and that she was dying.
Suddenly, a new team of doctors and nurses rushed in: the "crash" team. That was when we, her parents, were asked to leave the room.
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It seemed like hours, but it was only a few minutes before things (somewhat) settled down. Ronee' was back, but something was still not right, according to Dr. Emmons. She was in a comatose state, and her one side was paralyzed. There was something neurologically wrong with her brain: things did not look that encouraging.
All of a sudden, the cheery Christmas decorations adorning the hospital turned to be insulting. It may have been Christmas Day on the calendar (and Ronee' 's eighth birthday), but we were feeling anything but merry as we agonized over the fate of our little girl. We had no clue as to what was going on; hopefully, we would find out something soon. All we knew was this: our daughter was desperately sick; there was no indication as to she would ever recover from this latest medical crisis.
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Finally (much to our relief), we saw our daughter's pediatrician coming our way. We stood up and shook hands. Dr. Emmons looked tired, concerned. The serious look on his face alarmed us.
As we sat down, Dr. Emmons explained the situation to us. The news was not good. Ronee' had suffered a cerebralvascular accident (CVA); her one side (her left) was paralyzed, and she was in a coma. There was no indication as to whether she would recvoer; if she did, she would, more than likely, be disabled more than she already was.
It was worse, much worse, than we could have ever imagined.
I remmber my usually-calm wife grabbing Dr. Emmons by the shirt collar, yelling, "But it CAN'T be a stroke!! Little children like her don't have strokes!! She's only a little girl!! It's NOT fair!!" or something to that effect. She was inconsolable.
Meanwhile, all I could do was put my head into my hands and cry. And pray.
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Ronee' "came out of the fog" a few days later. She couldn't move her left arm or leg yet, and she stayed silent, but she could talk some if prompted by us (or the medical team assigned to her care). Hopefully, physical and occupational therapy could bring her back. It was her (and our) only chance.
Besides her physical health, we were dismayed to find out that the stroke affected her mental state, too. Our once-cheerful, ebellient child ws replaced by a child who cried or yelled when stretched, and she seemed distant somehow. The sparkle was gone from her eyes, and it broke our hearts. It was going to be a long, uphill battle; it was going to take a miracle to bring Ronee' back.
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For several weeks, Ronee' remained in the hospital, undergoing painful physical rehab. She was in a constant state of therapy: speech, emotional, occupational, physical. It was hard seeing her cry out in pain as she tried to use a walker or move her affected side. It was hard seeing her drooping smile as she struggled to use paralyzed facial muscles. It was hard seeing her go into a tantrum whenever the therapists worked with her. She knew something bad had happened to her, and it scared her. She didn't understand that she'd suffered a stroke, but whatever it was, it was big, and it changed her life in a huge way.
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In late January of that year, Ronee' came home for good. She was moving her side again, and she was on her walker, but she was walking on her own. She wsa volatile in her emotions: one minute she was happy; the next, crying or angry. One never knew when she would explode in frustration. Any little thing could set her off. It was like walking in a room full of eggshells.
We tried to take it in stride, and we tried to help our daughter in any way possible. Slowly, our Ronee' was coming back, but she wasn't the same. She was embarrassed about her smile, and she worked hard to overcome the paralysis. Hour after hour, she'd stand in front of the mirror, trying to smile correctly, often to the point of tears. She hated the walker, and she hated therapy. Yet she knew that if she wsa to get any better, she had to go through with it, no questions asked.
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Now I look at my beautiful daughter, now a teenager, and i see very little evidence of her stroke. She looks completely normal. She is walking with just two canes, and she moves her entire body gracefully, flawlessly. When she smiles, she uses her whole face, and when she does smile, it is often.
She can do anything she wants, and while she still possesses a stubborn streak within her, she is a very happy, vibrant young lady who lives life to the full. It is amazing at how far she has come since that awful Christmas Day nearly six years ago. She is a true Christmas Miracle!
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