3 days before Samuel’s accident, I had gotten a crown on my tooth. I was hurting bad enough that I called the dentist that morning, to find out what I could do about the pain. In fact, I had gone to the store to get some numbing gel for it. In the 3 hours of everything crashing down, I felt no pain. No hunger. No tiredness. Nothing.
And then he flew away. And I felt like I had fallen down the rabbit hole, where things were the same yet failed to make sense.
As soon as that helicopter was out of sight, my tooth was throbbing, my head hurt, my stomach growled, & I felt like I had just run a marathon. Not that I would know how one feels after a marathon, cause I’m not one for running. But I have an imagination!
As we were almost home, the dentist called me back. That was such a strange phone call. Not for anything that was said, but for the fact that when I had called earlier, nothing was wrong. And now, when they call back, nothing is the same. The comparison of the two times, in just a 3 hour span, was amazing. I don’t remember if Adam was home from his function before or after us. I do remember sitting at the table, looking around and wondering “now what?”. Samuel was on his way to Milwaukee, 4 hours south of us. He left Rhinelander about 12:50 & was due to arrive down there around 2:30, which is when we were able to leave home.
Adam & I packed a suitcase, ate something, & left my mother with the children. It seemed to take forever to get down there, but eventually we did. We arrived at Children’s Hospital at 6:30 & were escorted to the surgery waiting room. We were there 30 minutes or so, & then we met with the general surgeon, Dr. D. He explained that the truck had crushed his pelvis in 3 places: 2 on the left & 1 on the right. The bones had lacerated his bowel & his urethra. It will be many more months before we learn that the nerves going down his left leg, along with the nerves that work the sphincter muscles, have also been damaged.
The urologist, Dr. K, was able to sew the urethra back together & had inserted 2 catheters: one up through the urethra, so that it wouldn’t scar shut, & the other into his bladder to keep the urine from collecting there. A colostomy had been done, since his bowel was lacerated & unusable.
After we were done talking with the doctor, we went up to the 4th floor where the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is. It was overwhelming walking into his room. There were monitors everywhere, coming out of the post behind his bed. Like branched out of a tree. There were tubes & lines going to and fro, all leading to him. As he lay there, with that tube down his throat, he seemed so small. So fragile. I can’t believe were here, in a place like this. Is this really happening?
On the ride to Milwaukee, his blood pressure kept dropping, & the nurses suspected an internal bleed somewhere, so they had given him several units of plasma. He didn’t actually need the plasma, so he was quite swollen from the excess fluids. It would take several days before all that fluid would be absorbed or gotten rid of by his body. It left quite a few bruises in it’s wake, though.
It still is hard to see these pictures. Not because they are grafic or disturbing, but because they bring up the complete helplessness & bewilderment that I felt in those days still feel. You can see his stoma above his diaper on the right side, in the last picture. Can you tell how swollen his legs are?
We have stayed in the Ronald McDonald House before, in Marshfield when Nathaniel & Damaris were born, so I know how welcoming that place can be. (If you ever, ever want to give, please please please please consider donating to your local Ronald McDonald House! These houses/buildings are such a benefit & are a definite NEED to those families with children in the hospital! Until you’ve been there, you have no idea what a relief it is to know that you have a place where you can cook, sleep, a safe place for your children to play, even be able to do laundry…. at no cost to you. It is a serious weight lifted off our shoulders, for we have enough of a load to bare since we are there in the first place.) We had to be checked in before 9 pm, so at some point, Adam left to go do that. I think we ended up going over there sometime after midnight. It’s a beautiful place! We were on the 3rd floor, right next to that wing’s kitchen. The next day, we went to the grocery store & stocked up on food. It was thanks to this kitchen that I now have 2 microwaves in my own!
Little did I know then, that this would be Elisha & I’s “home away from home” for the next month!
