Broken

 

It’s been three weeks today since Sean’s accident and I think the reason it’s taken this long to write it down is that I’ve been utterly unable to describe some of the things that happened that day.  The hardest moment in particular was on the way to the hospital.  And after trying for the last several days to capture exactly what happened during those moments where I tried to pray for my son, I’ve finally arrived at the place that says I shouldn’t try.  Some of the most sacred and personal thoughts that come to our hearts should stay there to be privately pondered and revisited.  Instead, I feel that I need to record this day and the moments that I can describe so that we can look back and remember a day of miracles and answered prayers—even those unspoken.

(photos taken after the fact)

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Shopping with kids when you’re in a hurry is a dumb, dumb thing to do.  Years of shopping with TDHD has chiseled this into my mind … but I got stupid and cocky that Friday morning, and believed that I could force in one quick little trip anyway.

Dumb, dumb, dumb.

The ironic thing was that I was trying to get better pictures for blog post on shopping with kids since TDHD had been evil when I’d tried to take pictures the night before.  And there was the other little matter of the totally procrastinated teacher appreciation gifts that I was trying to throw together.  And so I headed for my friendly neighborhood Smith’s with the youngest three, explaining all the way there that Mom was in a hurry and that I needed them to behave and be helpers.

Yeah.  Because that’s ever worked.

And, as I should have known, the kids were in no hurry to cooperate or help to pick out cheesy teacher treats. And for no apparent reason on the way out of the store, Sean crawled under the shopping cart Superman-style.

“No bud. You’re going to get hurt,” I told him in my I’m-irritated-and-don’t-have-time-for-this-now voice.

But Sean started to scream … and I was blocking traffic waiting for him to jump off … and it was just across the parking lot anyway …

AND SO I CAVED

EVEN THOUGH THAT LITTLE VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD TOLD ME THIS WAS A BAD IDEA.

“Hang on kid and keep your hands on the cart. If you get hurt it’s your own fault.” And with that I hurried across the parking lot at a near jog.  I was running late and the kids’ antics hadn’t helped—I needed to move.

Just as I made it to the truck, the cart hit something and abruptly stopped, sending me crashing into the handle bars as the cart skidded an extra foot or two forward with a “crunch.”

What the …?  Did I hit a rock?

Sean’s screams punctured the air as I looked around to see what was wrong.  The first thing I saw was blood—lots of blood—all over the pavement near the shopping cart wheel.  Sean was trying to climb off the cart and, at that moment, I still couldn’t see anything wrong.

“Oh, great,” I thought.  He probably munched his hand—like I warned him he would—and is going to need a band aid.   Do I even have any band aids in the truck right now?  I so don’t have time for --

and then Sean stood up.

I suddenly understood what I’d hit and what had “crunched” after my momentum slammed me into the cart.

The skin and muscle from Sean’s right index finger had been torn away from the bone and was dangling in a chewed up mess near his palm.  His bloody, exposed bones gutted out, looking, to my horror, exactly like a skeleton hand from anatomy classes.

“SEANRY!”

I screamed, turning my head for a second and nearly throwing up on the pavement.  I felt like I’d been hit by a wall of nausea and worried that I might to pass out.  I quickly looked around the parking lot for someone, anyone to help me.  But there was no one—not a soul in sight—who had heard Sean’s screams or my cries for help.

For a split second I thought about calling for an ambulance, but the city geek in me knew it would be pointless.  Our fire district boundaries are so lame that the dispatched unit would be from one of the stations furthest away.  I knew that if I wanted to get this kid fixed quickly, it was going to be up to me and that was terrifying.

Sean was screaming and freaking out, and in his panic, was shaking his hand which made the skin and muscle flop around.  I reached for his hand and pulled the skin and muscle up against the bone and clamped down as hard as I could.  Sean screamed louder in pain.

I knew my grip must be excruciating, but I needed to do something to keep the skin from tearing away and try to slow the bleeding.  Blood poured down his hand and mine as I scooped his little body up under my arm, and hurried to the back of the truck.  The only thing I saw was the dust rag I used for cleaning off the dashboard, but it would have to work.  I grabbed the rag and quickly wrapped it around Sean’s finger, trying to make sure the skin, muscle and bone were held together.

I looked up to see where the other kids were and saw Ash standing up in the shopping cart seat trying to climb out.  “NO!” I thought. “I can’t have another kid in stitches! Not today! I can’t do this!”  And so from only six feet away, I screamed at her from the top of my lungs to sit down, now!  And by divine intervention, she sat right down, which she never, ever does.

I yelled for Kade to get into truck and get a seatbelt on, then carried Sean around to the driver’s side and opened the passenger door.  I set him on the seat and pulled a shoulder belt across his shaking body and cinched in tight against his blood-stained shirt.  There was no time for a booster and no way to lift him into the back to get to a car seat.  The shoulder belt would just have to work.  I took Sean’s good hand and placed it over the rapidly soaking rag.

“Look at me, Sean.  LOOK AT ME!  I need you to sit very still and hold your hand together for Mom.” He screamed louder and tried to pull his hand free.  I held his hand in place as he continued to thrash and scream.  “Seanry,” I desperately told him, “I know you’re scared and I know this hurts, but I need you to be brave.  Momma’s going to make everything better, but I have to drive the truck.  I can’t get you to a doctor if I’m holding your hand.  Please, bud, I need you to be brave and hold your hand together while I drive.”  And in a second act of divine intervention, Seanry stopped trashing as his good hand held tightly to the bloody rag.

I looked up to see if Kade’s seatbelt was on, but didn’t see him.  I hopped out of the truck and saw Kade standing stoically next to Ash and the cart.  He was stunned, in shock and looked completely out of it.   I scooped up Ash and grabbed Kade by the hand, hurrying around to the other side of the truck so that no one would bump Sean.  Two seconds later the kids were buckled and I circled back around to my side to hop in.  But I nearly crashed into the cart on my way around.

I had completely forgotten about the groceries.

What on earth was I supposed to do with them?

For a second I thought,  Screw it.  This means jack right now. But I knew that I was about to head up to the hospital--for hours probably--and that the kids would need to have something to eat.  And so I literally threw my groceries into the back seat, slammed the door and hopped in.

 As I hurried through the parking lot toward the the busy highway, I shouted one word behind me to the kids,

“PRAYER!”

“Mommy, I can’t ….” It was Kade.   We rotate days of saying morning and evening prayers and today’s day was Kade’s.  His frightened eyes met mine in the rear view mirror as his voice trailed off.  “It’s okay, bud,” I told him, ripping off my baseball hat and throwing it across the front seat.  “This one’s a mommy job.” A mommy job.

I couldn’t see Sean on his seat, but his sobs behind me were growing louder.  And the nausea I felt was growing stronger as dizziness settled in.   My face felt like it was burning up and I could tell that I was on the verge of loosing it.  “Don’t do this now!” I inwardly screamed at myself.  “You have to be the Mom and Mom’s fix things.”

I took a deep breathe and floored it out into traffic.

“Heavenly Father …” I began as bravely as I could muster,  gripping the steering wheel and choking back tears … but I was completely unable to continue.  My mouth refused to move … I felt paralyzed …  overwhelmed … too full of adrenaline, fear and emotion to speak … frantic that at the moment I needed to pray the most, I physically could not make it happen.

But then the third of many miracles happened as all of the noise and commotion faded away to a perfect stillness.  In actual time it was two, maybe three seconds, but in that moment of absolute need, a loving Heavenly Father spoke to a scared mother and hurting child.  In that moment, a suburban became a temple—a sacred place, a holy place, a place of teaching and learning--as the prayer I could not utter was received and answered. 

A timid voice yanked me back to the present.

“Mommy …”

I blinked hard, forcing the tears from my eyes and yanking my drifting truck back into my lane.  I looked up to see Kade in the rear view mirror waiting for me to continue my prayer.   I could see fear in his face as he watched Sean bleed and Mommy cry.  I silently plead again with the Lord for strength to get it together.

“Heavenly Father,” I began again in a faltering voice, “please help Seanry be okay. Amen.”

I stared ahead at the mountains, listening for the comfort and direction that moments earlier I had been told would come.  But I heard no directions, no instructions, no game plan. Instead a strong, but gentle feeling came simply to my mind:

GO.

And so I forced the accelerator closer to the floor and raced for home as I pulled out my phone with the flashing Low Battery light.  “Father, this phone can’t die yet,” I pleaded as I hit a well-worn speed dial number. 

My neighbor, thankfully, answered on the first ring.

“Lorri, I need your help now,” I quickly began with that voice of urgency that every mother knows.  “Sean’s hand is hurt bad and I’m on my way to the emergency room.   I can’t take the other kids with me and am on my way to the house.  I need one of your kids on my door in three minutes.”

“On our way,” was her immediate reply because that’s what good friends do when they hear that voice.  And when I pulled into my driveway exactly three minutes later, her son was right there waiting.   I quickly grabbed Kade, Ash and a box of Fruit Loops from the jumble of groceries in the back and headed for the door.

“Turn on a movie and get the kids cereal for lunch. No one goes outside, no one touches the kittens and my cell number is on the frig. I’ll call you in an hour when we’re settled.  Oh, and thank you.”

Thirty seconds later, I threw the truck in gear and headed towards the hospital.

***************************************************

Just as we headed out, the thought came very clearly to my mind:

Turn on a movie for Sean.

Sean’s favorite move, Hero of the Rails, was in the DVD player and I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that earlier.  I’m sometimes amazed at the skills that God gives to mothers, and this moment no different. 

 

Even though I am the world’s least flexible person, I was able to reach behind me, turn on the ceiling mounted movie player manually, adjust the screen, send the sound to the rear speakers and pull out my rapidly dying cell phone, all while steering with my knee.   As soon as Thomas the Tank Engine appeared on the screen, sobs turned to whimpers.

Thank you, Father, for that prompting.

By the time we reached the last major intersection before the hospital, drop-offs for Savannah had been juggled, busing for Dylan had been rearranged and child care for the rest of the day had been figured out.  As I sat staring at the traffic light, willing it to turn green, one last call was made:

Ben.

Oh, how I hated that this was the second time in two months that I was taking Sean to the ER and had to pull Ben out of work!

  “How’s Sean?” he asked as I quickly rattled off what had happened.  “He’ll be fine,” I said firmly, surprising myself, “but we’ve gotta hustle and I need your help.”

“On my way,” was his immediate reply, because that’s what fathers do when they get those kind of calls.  And just as Ben said good-bye, my phone died.  I smiled through tears and squeezed my phone.  Thank you, Father, for those extra few minutes.  I needed that. 

The light turned green.  GO.

Thankfully there was a semi-close parking spot available when I pulled up in front of the ER.  Sean started crying hard again when I turned off the movie and I hated that I had to move him.   When I opened Sean’s door, I gasped out loud.  His rag was soaked with blood that now trickled down his arms onto his lap.  Oh my sweet boy!  I’m so sorry! Mommy’s so sorry!

I scooped up his tiny body and cradled it against me as I hurried as fast as I could in flip flops towards the door.  I couldn’t help but remember two months ago when I was here with Sean and Ash, and the maddening experience that had been.  I brushed the tears from my face on my shirt sleeves and steeled myself for a show-down with the admitting clerk. 

So help me if they give me any grief about not having my insurance card on me or make this kid wait for more than two seconds, I’m gonna punch ‘em.

But in the six or seventh miracle of the morning, nobody needed to be punched.  Maybe it was the sight of Sean and me with blood splatters on our face, clothes and arms.  Maybe it was the sight of Sean’s soaked rag and or his hysterical cries.  Or maybe it was just that the woman behind the counter was a mother, too, and recognized the need for compassion first and procedure second.

 

As I came through the ER doors, Mrs. Nice Admitting Nurse immediately stood up, grabbed a clip board and came around to meet me.  “Just sit and hold him,” she said with an urgent warmth.  “I can fill this form out for you--just give me his name and DOB and I’ll have you fill out the rest of the paperwork after you get settled.”  She even put his admitting bracelet around his leg so that no one would have to bump either of his arms.

Bless you, Mrs. Kind Admitting Nurse.

“Daddy,” Sean weakly called out through tears as Ben came through the hospital doors a minute later.  Ben scooped up his little boy and held him and comforted him while I gathered up my purse and the mountain of paperwork to fill out.

A stocky nurse in black scrubs with a black goatee led us back into a small triage room away from the main hub of the ER.  “Would you like a sucker, bud?” he asked Seanry, who nodded through tears.

Bless you, Mr. Nice Triage Nurse Guy for understanding that Dum Dum suckers make everything better.

Then he started in with the usual barrage of questions about the accident and the time frame and Sean’s medical history that shouldn’t have been a big deal.

But something, for some reason, had changed and it was a big deal to me.

It seemed like as soon as Ben had scooped up Seanry in the admitting area, my strength to cope started to leave me.  And I also noticed that I was feeling on edge and more and more irritated by the questions Mr. Nurse Triage Guy was asking … almost as if I were on trial trying to justify everything to the nurse … and to Ben.

Yes, I let Sean ride on the bottom of the cart.

Yes, I know that’s not safe.

No, I don’t have my insurance card on me.

No, his immunizations aren’t up to date. 

Why? Because he was sick for several months after he was born and I decided to delay them for a year until his body could handle them.

For a minute I had to step back and let Ben field some of the questions so that I could take a deep breathe and figure out what was going on.

Why was I feeling this way?  Why was I getting defensive? And why was I feeling threatened as “a mom” just because Ben was holding Sean?

That gnawing feeling got worse when Mr. Triage Nurse Guy tried to look at Sean’s hand.  I turned my head and walked to the back of the room, completely unwilling to see how bad it was under bright lights.  I just couldn’t look again, couldn’t handle the wave a nausea again, couldn’t face that my mistake had hurt my kid again.  And yet in looking away, I felt like a total hypocrite.  How could I tell Sean to be brave when I couldn’t do the same?

The first touch from the nurse sent Sean into orbit has he fought to roll out of Ben’s arms and away from the pain.  Ben pulled him back onto his lap as he tried to sooth the cries of a little boy pleading with him to make it stop.  But Sean kept thrashing until Ben clamped his arm across Sean’s chest, holding him place for the nurse to pull the rag away.  I saw the anguish in Ben’s face as he forced his son to experience the painful exam, knowing it was the only was to make him better.

After Mr. Triage Nurse Guy was able to hold Sean’s hand still long enough to take a look, his face got very serious as he scooted back to the computer to enter some notes.  “When’s the last time he ate?” he asked me without looking up from the screen.  His voice had a  markedly more serious tone.

Asking about food intake could only mean that Sean was going to need surgery, not stitches, and he was worried about him vomiting under anesthesia.

“Around 11:00 this morning.” I told him, “Why?”

His eyes narrowed to squint as he stared at Sean’s sucker.  “We probably ought to take that away from him just in case.”

“Really?” I asked in disbelief, even though I understood why. Was this guy serious?

“Yeah, we’re not supposed to let them have anything to eat if they need to be put under.”

Sean started crying harder, all too aware that he was about to loose his favorite “boo” sucker to the not-so-nice nurse triage guy. I could tell Ben wasn’t happy about the idea either, but he tried to explain to Sean what needed to happen and to hand over the sucker. 

Sean’s cries grew louder and became more like the pleading sobs of child for mercy than of a child in pain.  This sucker was Sean’s anchor--a brief bit of familiar and comfortable in a very unfamiliar and uncomfortable place.  So when Mr. Mean Triage Nurse Guy tried to get Sean to give up the sucker again, I’d had it.  This guy’s ridiculous adherence to procedure-for-the-sake-of-procedure made me furious.  I had failed to protect Sean minutes before, but like hell I would let anyone hurt him again.

“Listen,” I announced in no uncertain terms, “This kid’s had a brutal morning and that sucker’s the only thing keeping him calm.  He just ate 45 minutes ago so that Dum Dum’s not going to make-or-break him getting sick under anesthesia.”

Mr. Jerk Triage Nurse Guy just stared at me for a minute as I glared back at him with every mean, nasty vibe I could send his way.

Do . Not . Cross . Me .

I will punch you if you try one more time to take my kid’s sucker away.

“I guess we can let him hang on to it until the doctor comes in” he finally conceded.

Within a few minutes we were shown to ER Exam 4 while surgical and imaging consults were arranged.  Sean refused to be put down on the hospital bed, so Ben held him on his lap as we tried to figure out what to do next.

We both wanted to be there and be there together, but realized that the rest of our life at home still had to taken care of.  Ben offered to got home so that I could stay with Sean, and my first thought was to do just that.  But, I also knew that Ben could take care of him just as well as I could … and that there were lots of details to work out … and I knew the kids’ routine far better than Ben … and I had blood splatters on my clothes that probably should be changed … and I was pretty sure I had just started my cycle … and on and on and on ….

And so against every instinct I had as a mother, I kissed my broken little boy good-bye and walked out of the hospital alone.

On my way home, I stopped by the school to pick up Cam.  As usual, the line of cars was stacked twelve deep as I inched my way toward the front of the line.  Somewhere between the time I pulled into the parking lot and when Cam came bounding over to the car, I had a mini melt down.  For the first time since the accident, I was alone with my thoughts and the emotion bled out.

I cried.  Again.  Because I had hurt my son … and because he’s my baby … and because it’s the first major “oh crap this is bad” injury we’ve had … and because you’re allowed to freak out at the first major blood-letting more than you know you will at the next….  But more than that, I cried because that unsettling, defensive feeling I felt in the ER was looking more and more like a guilt I wasn’t ready to face yet.  And so I told myself, again, to get it together and focus.

“Cameron,” I said as he climbed into the truck, “Something’s happened to Sean and I’m going to need some help ….”

**************************************************

I know I shouldn’t have.  I so did not have time for this.

But when I made it back to the house with Cam, I spent a long time in the shower.  After scrubbing the blood off my hands, face and arms, I leaned up against the cool tile in the shower and let the scalding water pour over me.  There were no tears.  All of them were gone as that raw, burned out feeling of emotional exhaustion settled in and rose like the steam all around me. I kept going back over the moments of the day: the accident, the drive to the hospital, the jerk nurse in triage.  But mostly my mind went back to when I started to loose it—when my mom-skills seemed to slip away as soon as Ben arrived. 

There, alone in the shower, I couldn’t push the feeling away any longer.

“I screwed up,”

I told the bottle of Pantene sitting on the shower shelf.  I was warned—twice—that running to Smith’s was dumb and I blew off the prompting off each time.  Everything Sean’s been through today and everything in front of him was 100% … preventable.

The weight of that moment was crushing.  I wanted to run away.  I wanted to hide from God.  But most of all, I just wanted to turn off everything that I was thinking and feeling ….

The only comforting thought was that I could run away, at least for a little while, because there was lots of juggling and arranging and figuring out to do that I knew was a ‘Mom Job’ if there ever was one.  Self-pity and loathing could wait.  And if I hurried, I just might make it back before Sean went into surgery. So I turned off the water and reached for a towel. 

Another deep breathe.  GO.

 An hour after I walked out of the ER, I walked through the main lobby and went straight to information to find out were Sean was.  After a few minutes and phone calls, the nice lady at the desk told me that Sean was in Exam 4.  “In the ER?” I asked her, confused.  “Yup,” she said with a super big smile.  “Alrighty, then.  Thanks.” 

Why wasn’t Sean in surgery?

The door to Exam 4 was open, but the lights were out and Ben was slumped over in a chair next to Sean’s bed, eyes closed.  Sean’s tiny body was asleep in the massive, sterile bed--his hand thankfully covered in a protective swath of gauze and red bandaging.  An IV line had been placed in his other arm, but it wasn’t attached to a drip.

“Hey …” I quietly said to Ben as I came and sat down in the chair next to him.  His tired eyes shot open as he quickly sat up.

“What’s going on with Sean?”

Ben explained that after I’d left, the doctor had been kind enough to start Sean on a morphine drip before he did anything.  Once the pain started to subside, Sean’s hand had been x-rayed and bandaged up.  He’d been brought back to the room while the films were read, and it had only taken him a few minutes to fall asleep.  The x-rays showed that the tip of Sean’s finger was severely fractured, probably from the impact of me crashing into the cart handle.

“They’re sending him to Primary’s,” Ben said in a pensive voice.  “The nurse at the desk is getting everything set up right now.  I’ve been listening to her on the phone with the ER down there and it’s bad.  She’s been using words like ‘severe’ and ‘serious’ and ‘extensive.’ The doctor here thinks the reconstruction would be better handled down there.”

Reconstruction?

I bit down hard on my lip.

“Well,” I told Ben, looking away, “I’ve just made an executive decision.  I think I should go back to work at the bank and you can stay home with the kids again.  That way they’ll stop getting hurt.”

Tears welled up in my eyes as I stood up and tried to walk out of the room.  I was overwhelmed by the change in plans and embarrassed that I had really said something that petty and pathetic. Ben caught me by the shoulders and gently turned me around.  He wrapped his arms around me and told me that it wasn’t my fault, that it was an accident.  But, I just shook my head and cried harder … because I tried so hard everyday to be a good mom and keep my kids safe, but this was the second time in two months that we were in the ER with kids … and I told him I couldn’t do it anymore … and that I couldn’t handle it if another one of the kids got hurt. 

Ben’s just held me for a minute and then looked me right in the eye and smiled.  It was a kind, supportive smile that told me he loved me, that he wasn’t upset, that he really meant what he had said.

I walked back over to Sean’s bed side and flopped down in the chair while Ben stepped out into the hallway to check in with work.  I stared at Sean as his exhausted body slept deeply in that huge bed.  I reached over and held his good hand as I leaned up against the side rail.  I took a deep breathe and tried to make things right.

“Seanry, it’s Mom,” I whispered.  “I just wanted to tell you that I’m sorry … Mommy really screwed up today that’s why you got hurt … I just want you to know that love so much you and that I’m really, really sorry ….”

“Mrs. Peterson … ?”

I looked up to see the doctor standing in the doorway.  I nodded and sat up in chair, wiping tears away from my face.   Dressed in green scrubs and wearing a surgical cap, he came through the doors and shook my head.  He kindly told me how often accidents like this happen and how tough it can be to be a kid.  His smile was gentle and sincere, and I was so glad to be met with compassion instead of an interrogation.

He explained that the break and tears were bad enough that he didn’t know if they could save all of his finger.  He said that our best chance to save it was to send him to the regional children’s hospital and I appreciated his candor in acknowledging the the limits of his expertise and resources of the hospital.

A smiley, soft-spoken nurse came in with the transfer paperwork for Sean and copies of his x-rays on CD.  We thanked them for their care of our son and headed for the doors.  And two hours after arriving, Sean left the ER.

Ben set Sean down in Ash’s car seat on the middle bench, rather than mess with his in the very back.  It was a tight fit, but Sean actually seamed happy to be sitting closer to the front and I felt better having him within arm’s reach.  As Ben and I climbed in, I told him that I wasn’t driving to the hospital until Sean had a blessing.  There was no way I was sending my son into reconstructive surgery without the power and influence of a priesthood blessing.

 And so we pulled out of the hospital parking lot and straight into the A&W across the street.  Neither of us had eaten lunch and it was a little after 2:00 pm.  As Ben ordered lunch, I pulled out the phone and called our home teachers and neighbors, only to reach voice mail after voice mail.

It was 2:00 pm on a Friday—everyone was still at work.

On my last call, I found out that our bishop (pastor) had taken the day off and was home.  I hated to intrude on his family time, but Sean needed a blessing and he was our last hope.  “Give me a few minutes to change and I’ll be right up,” he said.

For the next several minutes, Ben and I discreetly sipped root beer while Sean stared ahead at the DVD screen.  As his good hand cradled his bandaged one in an instinctively protective way, the faintest of smiles spread across his face.  Then in his garbled Seanry-speak, a half whispered song wafted forward, “Down the hills and round the bends, Thomas and his friends….”

Ben and I traded cautious, relieved smiles.

Thank you Heavenly Father for making him comfortable.

A minute later our bishop pulled in and came straight over to the truck.  Then he and Ben climbed into the back seat and wedged themselves in on either side of Sean’s car seat.  And in the sweetest of moments, the patriarch of our ward and patriarch of our family blessed Sean that the surgeons would be inspired to know how to fix his hand, and that his body would know how to heal itself.  He was also blessed that this accident wouldn’t slow him down or affect him long-term.  The same peace that I’d felt in the truck during my prayer for Sean returned as the impression came clearly to my mind:

He’s going to be just fine.

After the blessing, the bishop asked how the ward could help, who was watching the kids and who was taking care of dinner.  “Let me make some phone calls,” he said has he hopped out of the truck.  “Call me if you need anything tonight and also let me know how everything goes.” 

Thank you, Heavenly Father, for a wonderful bishop and awesome ward family.

At 2:21 pm, Ben and I buckled our seat belts and double-checked Sean’s. The ER at Primary’s was waiting for us and nothing could fix Sean until we got there.

It was time to head out … GO.

Most of the trip was quiet while Ben and I ate, trying to both come down from the last few hours and prepare ourselves for the ones to come.  There were phone calls made to family and check-ins with the kids at home, all while Seanry quietly followed the adventures of Thomas and Percy and Hiro from the back seat.

As we got off the exit, I looked towards the hospital sitting up high on the east bench of the city, with its commanding views of the valley below.  The climb to the hospital is quick and steep through neighborhoods of old victorian and craftsman homes that have been mostly converted to college housing.  Near the top, the road narrows with a few quick switch backs on tree-lined roads past the university hospital and campus.  One last curve to the right and we pulled up the main drive to the hospital.  As we turned into the parking garage, there was so many thoughts running through my head.

For starters, I wondered if the spectacular view from this place was one of the most irrelevant in the world.  Because no one comes to this place for fun.  The climb up the hill to this place is made by parents carrying their children who are broken or wounded or sick.  This climb sees worry and fear and weariness and grief on the faces of those who come here.

View?  What view?

  I also thought of the last time I climbed the hill to this place three years ago in Ben’s Intrepid.  My precious one-month old Seanry was in a baby carrier in the back seat, and I was hoping the doctors could figure out why he was so sick. 

As I had walked in, someone asked me how many days I’d been there in what must be a camaraderie among the parents.  “First time,” I had answered with a nervous laugh.  “Hopefully it will be your last,” was the weary reply of a father whose kind, sad smile I could still see.

The check-in and triage were blessedly quick as we moved from room to room as transfer paperwork was examined, reexamined and added to Sean’s new chart.   The whole time Sean just stared ahead at the giant TV screens that seemed to be everywhere.  “Ka-chow” Seanry called out softly each time Lightening McQueen flashed a smile.

  Man it’s good to see this kid smile.

A chatty nurse in bright scrubs walked us down to the exam room were we’d be in for the next four hours.  As we stepped into the room, I realized it was a trauma suite, complete with the wide glass sliders to get beds in and out quickly, and the bright overhead surgical lights that I remembered from all those c-sections. Sean got a little jumpy as Ben tried to set him down on the bed.  The room made him scared, and truthfully, it made me a little scared, too. 

This room was nothing like the ER rooms at our local hospital which felt just like our pediatricians office—just with beds.  The room had no Disney pictures or Dr. Seuss prints, just enormous posters on the procedures for calling in pediatric cardiac crashes and massive seizures. This room was lined with rolling carts and cabinets of syringes and tubing and sterile dressings and surgical instruments—everything to put broken bodies back together. 

And we’re here because a small little piece of my little boy is broken.

And with that realization, the nausea crept back.

The nurse grabbed two beat up brown folding chairs from a corner and sat them next to the bed. After the nurse left, Ben scooped Sean up and held him on his chair.  There were a few books in a crate on one of the counters that I brought over to Sean to keep him distracted: a large EK Designs book on trucks and a flip book with bright play dough animals.  As more nurses, doctors and attendants came in and out of the room to check Sean, Ben softly read to his little boy.

“Which truck is your favorite? Where’s the silly blue fish? What sound does a lion make?”

The attending physician quickly decided that Sean needed a specialists to handle the reconstruction.  And in the umpteenth miracle of the day, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon who specialized in amputations was on call.  He came right down for a consult and decided to handle the surgery in that room.  Because Sean already had an IV placed and was fairly comfortable from the morphine dose from earlier, the call was made to sedate him rather than put him under. “It’ll be just a few minutes,” the nurse told us and stepped out to get some more supplies.

I shot Ben a quick “I’ll be right back” look and followed the nurse out into the hall and asked if there was some place to get a drink.

“For your son?” she asked me, with a confused look on her face.  “He’s not supposed to ---

“ --- oh, no … it’s for me.  I’m just feeling a little … uh …”

“…lightheaded?” she offered kindly.

I nodded my head.

Another smile and she returned a minute later with a can of Diet Coke and a styrofoam cup of ice water.  I leaned up against the the wall outside Sean’s room and closed my eyes.  I slowly sipped the ice water while I held the cold can of pop against my forehead.  As the nausea started a ebb, I stared back towards the nurses station at a large child-drawn mural that had been painted on square ceramic tiles.  A second later I heard controlled, but urgent voices coming towards me.  A team of paramedics and nurses were pushing an empty gurney and they were hurrying.  Where a patient should have been was a small white bag with a red cross and the words LIFE FLIGHT screened in red.  As they hurried past the large tiled mural, I heard one of them call over to the nurses station that they were, “heading to the pad.”

My heart sank.

I was on the out in the hall, not with my son, on the verge of throwing up—again … over a finger—a finger—when there was a broken child in a helicopter landing on the roof.  I felt angry at myself … for falling apart about something as small as a finger … for getting sick and not being able to be in the same room as Sean … for being too busy to listen to the spirit so that we had to be here anyway …. 

The whole situation seemed so overwhelming and consuming and it made me feel even more … sick.

Great.

The vibrating cell phone in my pocket snapped me out of the latest wave of self-loathing.  It was the Relief Society president calling to see how Sean was and what help we needed.  I could hear her talking, but my mind could not make sense of anything she was saying.  I saw the nurse roll an IV stand and surgical tray into Sean’s room and knew I needed to get back in there, even if I had to take my Diet Coke and my ice water and a barf pan.  I remember her asking if we needed dinner brought over for the kids and telling her that I didn’t know.  I apologized for being out of it and told her I’d call her as soon as Sean got out of surgery.

Chatty nurse came back into the room to get Sean’s IV going with another dose of morphine, the sedative and an amnesiac to help him forget the procedure.  She asked Ben to lay Sean down on the bed and Sean panicked when the nurse got close to him.  “No ouchies,” she said smiling, making deliberate, slow moves to touch his good hand with the IV line.  “No ouchies,” she said again when she had finished.

Sean was laid at the end of the bed with his head facing away from the door.  The surgeon pulled up another beat up brown folding chair and sat on the right side of Sean so that he could work on his outstretched hand.  The attending nurse—on yet another beat up folding chair—sat behind Sean’s head and Ben sat to his left.  Ben held Sean’s left hand and snuggled in as close as he could.  He picked up the truck book that had been laying next to Sean and opened up once more to the beginning.  “Trucks come in all shapes and sizes …” he began again in a low, rhythmic voice.  Sean looked away from the nurse who was draping green surgical cloths over his arm and hand and stared up at the pictures.

I watched Sean closely to see how he’d react to the sedation medication running through his IV.  When Cam and Ash had been sedated, they both reacted exactly the way I expected them to: bodies slumped over, eyes rolled back in the head, mouth and tongue all weird.  But with Sean there was … nothing.  He just laid there still, looking at me and Ben and the nurse and the surgeon.  He seemed a bit more relaxed, but none of the noticeable signs were there.

What does this mean?

After a few minutes of waiting and two injections called digital blocks to numb the area, the surgeon called for tools to scrub off Sean’s exposed bones and skin.  “Wait a minute,” I interrupted from my spot near the wall.  “I’ve seen what ‘sedated’ looks like and this isn’t ‘sedated.’  I’m not at all comfortable starting until I know this kids’ not going to feel a thing.”  The nurses, surgeon and Ben all turned and stared at me.  My face got hot and I suddenly felt dumb … like maybe I had missed something obvious and was completely out of line.  The nurse monitoring the IV looked at the drip bag and at Seanry’s chart and told me that he’d had the maximum dosage for his weight.  The only thing left to do would be to put him under which was considerably more risky. 

I told the nurse that I didn’t want to put Sean under if we didn’t absolutely have to, and to go ahead as planned.  “But,” I told her, trying to sound confident and strong, “if this kid looks like he’s hurting for even a second, we stop and put him under.”  The surgeon nodded and then turned back to Sean to get to work.

I finished my Diet Coke and then slowly drug my folding chair over to Sean’s bed and sat next to the surgeon.  I leaned up against the bed and rubbed Sean’s legs, sitting so that the surgeon’s back blocked my view of what was going on.  Seanry, surprisingly, looked over several times during the 45 minute procedure to watch the surgeon.  I was taken back by how calm he was.  A few times he got a little fussy when he looked over at the stitching, but each time I’d rub his legs and Ben would ask him a question about the story, and he’d relax and look up at the pictures and keep going.  Sean’s responses had the nurses and surgeon quietly laughing and smiling and telling Ben and I how amazed they were at how well he was doing. 

“Does this truck like Percy the train?” Ben would tease Sean. 

“No,” Sean would respond in a slow, but deliberate voice. “Like (Optimus) Prime.  Prime fastest!”

“He’s so cute!” the nurse said several times as Ben and I smiled and the surgeon methodically tied off stitch after stitch.

The surgeon made one final pass with the needle and then sat back, leaning over his right shoulder to look at me.  “Do you want to see this, Mom?” he asked me.

And just like that, I was fine.

“Yes, I do want to see,” I said, sitting up straight, the nausea magically gone.  I leaned forward towards the drab green surgical cloths covering Sean’s arm and took my first good, long look at Sean’s finger.  It was awful …but I physically felt fine.  I stared at the full extent of the damage, photographing each tear and each stitch into my mom brain. 

As I followed the lines of chewed up, puffy skin and blackened stitches, the surgeon went over the procedure in detail, explaining the extent of the damage, how the repair was made and Sean’s prognosis.  Hearing the surgeon’s take on the damage was surprisingly reassuring in confirming what I remembered happened in the Smith’s parking lot.  

He said that my feeling that Sean had put his hand down on the ground to get off the cart was probably correct and, in doing so, the wheel had slammed into the first knuckle.  Then the momentum of both the cart rolling and me crashing into the handle bars had fractured the tip and caused the tearing.  The impact had torn the skin across the top of the knuckle wide open and then pulled the skin and muscle up and over the tip of the finger, then ripped it down the back side, creating the jagged strips of skin I saw hanging down around the bone.

I started peppering the nurse and surgeon with questions on recovery time, loss of use, permanent nerve damage, dressing changes, problems to watch for and follow up visits.  As I fired off question after question, I felt the mom in me returning.

There you are … I whispered to myself.

While the surgical nurse went to get us dressing supplies to take home, a discharge nurse came in to check Sean.  “Well,” she said laughing.  “I guess we don’t have to wait for the sedation to wear off.  He looks pretty alert to me.  I’ll just go get him a drink and then you can go.”  She asked Sean if he wanted the orange special drink or the red.  “OWN-G,” Sean said emphatically.  A minute later she returned with a giant styrofoam cup filled with orange slushy mix which Sean practically grabbed out of her hand.  It was 7:30 pm and Sean hadn’t eaten or drank since 11:00 am, and you could tell.  His bandaged hand tipped back the cup as big as his head as he inhaled his own-g slushy.

A third of the way through his drink, Sean’s skin started turning a little bluish and his arms broke out in goose bumps.  His body started shivering as a bright orange ring formed around his mouth.  Sean stopped drinking for a second to get a breathe in.  "Slow down, bud,” I said, trying to take his drink away.  “No! Mine!” he shot back, twisting away so that I couldn’t get the cup.  The nurse got a kick out Sean and commented that he must be just a little bit hungry after a day like he’d had.  She said it was fine to let him down the whole thing since his vitals were good and he didn’t show any signs of complications from the sedative.  She did, however, bring Sean a heated blanket to wrap around him to keep him from shivering as he pounded back 12 more ounces of frozen goodness.  For being so brave, he even got to pick a Beanie Baby to take home—a real one.  Sean happily picked out a garish orange and rainbow metallic beetle. 

“Tink Bug,” he said proudly.

“No,” I told him.  “Lucky Bug.”

With all of Sean’s discharge papers, prescriptions and appointment slips tucked in my purse, I scooped up my little boy in his dried blood-splattered shirt and the wonderful heated blanket that the nice nurse said we could keep and carried him out to the main emergency drive where Ben was waiting.  While Ben buckled Sean in, I looked out across the valley below, taking in the view.

I’m taking my son home tonight and in one piece.

This view is not irrelevant, it’s beautiful.

Thank you, Father in Heaven, for … everything.

GO … home.

As we dropped down the bench, we stopped in the university district near downtown to get something to eat.  Even though Sean had just had a slushy, Ben pulled into a trendy strip mall next to a new Whole Foods market and got Sean the cutest, tiniest strawberry smoothie from Jamba Juice in yet another styrofoam cup. Then he pulled into the Taco Bell lot and grabbed a bite for us to eat on the way home.

As we drove home in the fading light day, there were more calls to family, with Glad It’s Overs and We’re On Our Way Homes.  Sean was quiet the whole time, happily sipping his smoothie and watching his favorite movie … with all of his finger attached.  Ben dropped me and Sean off at the house while he went to get prescriptions filled. 

It was past 8:30pm.

After the flurry of coming home … and visiting with the older kids … and getting the update from the sitter about how everything had gone while we were gone … and scriptures and prayer … and getting everyone to bed … and getting a special bed set up for Sean on the couch … I sat down on a bar stool at the kitchen counter and stared and the pile of pizza boxes that the ward had dropped by so that no one had to worry about dinner.  I felt a rush of gratitude for all of the people who had dropped everything to help us get through the day and for all of the little miracles that had happened along the way.

In the stillness of the room, the exhaustion and emotion slowly bled away.  And even though I had screwed up that morning, I felt the calmest of assurances that the Lord was pleased with everything I’d done since then.

 

I was home.  Sean was home.  The doors were locked and the other kids were down.  Prescriptions were filled.  Follow up appointments were scheduled.  Pain meds and antibiotics had been given.  There was nothing more that I could to do…. 

It was late, and morning and all that it would bring would come soon enough.  It was time.

GO …

 

… to sleep.