Broken Promises

Chapter 9 - Back in the Hospital

The pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) was at a different facility than the NICU. The NICU was part of the original birthing center. The PICU was part of a large children's hospital system not affiliated with the birthing center. When the physicians admitted you to the PICU, we expected care similar to the NICU. We had only been home for a short time before this re-admission, and yet we experienced a different set of doctors and nurses with wildly differing attitudes. Where the NICU had been accepting and supportive, the PICU was cold. Your pulmonologist aggressively tried to demand a DNR and withdrawal of care. No matter how many times we said no, there were more people coming to us to tell us how wrong we were. They seemed very uncaring and demanding.

It was horrific. Even the clergy attacked us when we came to visit you. When I was at school, they would ambush your mother to talk sense into me. They made the hospital a place that was no longer safe, and it quickly became a battlefield. Nurses would even avoid caring for you. They will never know how much worse they made a horrible situation. How easily they discarded a child and her parents' feelings for her!

They kept you intubated with a tube down your throat until your breathing stabilized and removed it once it was back to normal and you had strengthened. According to them, you needed rest, and breathing on your own was tiring you out. You remained in the PICU for about 1-2 weeks before being discharged.

I mentioned previously, our church was wonderful. Beyond measure. A family at the church knew we were having issues at our apartment and wanted to help. New managers had come in, and the incoming tenants had become scary to the point that visitors mentioned safety concerns. When we opened the door at night and saw people who did not live there standing outside the door a few times, we began to worry. A family from church offered to let us rent a house they owned at a very good price, no security payment. They told us they had prayed about it and realized this was their chance to share the blessings God had given them. They were a wonderful family, and the house quickly became home. It was a large three bedroom with an unfinished large basement and huge kitchen. It was a dream home to rent.

The church also organized volunteers to help us move. Someone talked to the landlord at our old place, who let us move without notice. Come the day of the move, people showed up and packed everything, and I mean everything. One lady from church took me out of the apartment to pick up some subs for lunch. We would not let us pack or carry anything. They emptied the apartment and had it in the house in record time. We were not out long, but when I arrived at the house, our belongings were all being unpacked. They made our house a home. All we had to do was take care of you while they did all the work.

After they moved us in, the pastor came to me and asked if we would object to something the men wanted to do. For the next few days, one would show up and walk around the house like in Jericho, praying. They would do their rounds and then leave, saying nothing to us. It was a solemn experience. They were like soldiers marching around the perimeter, protecting you, giving you all they had to give, their faith, their prayers. While some may not understand this, it was just another reaching out from a deep love and faith. They could nothing else but pray, and that is what they did. It meant the world to us.

July 1999

During your first six months of life, I had to give you CPR four times because you quit breathing and your heart fully stopped. There was one evening around four months old when I was taking a nap, and your alarms blared. First the oxygen saturation machine, which meant you were having trouble breathing. Next came the apnea monitor showing that your heart was no longer beating.

I woke up and ran to the living room. You were gone again. No pulse. This was not a machine issue. I had your mom call 911 as I began CPR on you for the first time. In these situations, all I could do was shut down my soul, and do what needs to be done. I learned I could kill that part off by strangling my feelings enough. What it leaves one with is the ability to do what must be done. You become nothing more than a machine. Later, most of what you killed off makes it back, but a piece remains stuck in that moment.