Why... the eternal question

I find myself asking ‘Why?’ a lot. Why this child? Why my child? Why him? Why the child that put up with me during nursing school? Why the child that says, ‘I’ll just get over it’? He’s so resilient. This leads to a lot of unanswered questions. There isn’t an answer. There isn’t a reason. It just happened. Eventually I make it to another thought. If this was going to happen, if this had to happen… it happened in the best way possible.

                Brian got out of school in the early afternoon that day. He considered picking Todd up from O2B early, but Todd LOVES it there. He will get mad if we pick him up before 5. So, Brian decided to leave him there. Thank God. What if this had happened in the car? Or at home? We probably would have just thought he was asleep. We never would have known.

                The staff at O2B know CPR. Thank God. From what I’ve learned over the course of this, not every day care/after school care requires that the staff know how to perform this. Quick acting on their part made all the difference. Without the staff knowing CPR, Todd would not have made it long enough for everyone involved to do what they did. They gave Todd a chance. They gave him another chance to live.

                I don’t know all of the details of the paramedics/EMTs story. I have a pretty good idea of what probably happened. I’m a nurse in Trauma ICU. Our patients are typically brought to us stable or with an entire team of people including doctors, nurses, and respiratory therapists attempting to make them stable. They don’t have that luxury outside of the hospital. Our environment is very controlled. Theirs changes based on where this particular call is. I know they got an airway on him, I know they attempted to revive him, and I know they transported him to the hospital. It takes a very special person to be able to do that. I can’t imagine. They were able to get him to North Florida Regional Medical Center (NFRMC) which, conveniently, was located across the parking lot.

                There was a special group of people at NFRMC that day. I was able to personally see what they were doing for my child. Everyone from the doctors to the nurses to the chaplain to the crisis counselor did their job beautifully. This is where we finally got a blood pressure and heart rate/rhythm back. Without the actions of these people and everyone before this would not have been possible. My world was turned upside down. They took care of me and Brian  as well as they did Todd. I was begging to see him. All I wanted was to lay my eyes on him. I know they were worried I would throw myself over him and get in their way. With the support of one of the staff (I won’t name this person since they helped me barge into the room uninvited), I maneuvered my way in and laid eyes on my child for the first time. I’ve seen many people in that position, in a code, looking so lifeless. I had tried to prepare myself for what I was going to see. I knew he wouldn’t look like ‘Todd’, but I realized that as much as I tried to prepare myself, I was expecting to see a different person lying on that table. A different child. They must have made a mistake. But, there he was. We were taken to another room to wait to speak to the doctor that had been working on our child. They were very straight forward with us; already had initiated transfer to Children’s at Shands. We were lucky enough that one of the ER doctors that was off that day happened to be there and rode with Todd and ShandsCair to Shands. ShandsCair took the time to introduce themselves to me and explain what they were doing etc. Again, another set of amazing people. Todd got a multi police car escort to Shands since it was 5 o’clock traffic. He is going to be so mad that he missed it.

                Once we made it to Shands we were taken to a separate private room from the rest of the pediatric ED. A social worker came in and spoke to us and assured us the doctors would be right in. The two doctors that came to speak to us were some of the best I have ever met. They were calm, collected, and most of all reassuring and straight forward. Todd was very sick. He was very unstable. We eventually made it up to the Pediatric ICU where there was a long wait before we could see him. They were still trying to stabilize him at this point. It was very touch and go. The nurses were very meticulous with his care. We’ve slept at the hospital every night since that first night, although, we didn’t do a lot of sleeping that night. Luckily for me, Shands was already my home away from home. Maybe not this unit, but everything was so familiar. This made everything so much easier.

                In the days to come our world continued to turn upside down, inside out, and completely change. Everyone around us came together and supported us. I have never felt so loved and cared for in my entire life. I could never express my gratitude to everyone. I don’t even know some of the people who have attempted to help us. All I can say is thank you… from the bottom of my heart.