I got up 21 hours ago. Before that I struggled to pull the
veil of foggy sleep from my brain enough to test N’s blood sugar, only to find
I’d wasted 2 precious hours in the task. Lord but I am so tired lately. Which
makes the fact that I couldn’t return to sleep then, or get to bed tonight that
much weirder.
It’s just that I suddenly became aware of the dark, heavy
weight pressing on my chest since the previous New Year remains stead fast in
its perch. It shines a gray faced mirror in my face, one into which I dare not
gaze. I have not yet forgiven myself, I haven’t released the ball of sadness
and anger that constantly threatens to overwhelm my very essence. I know that I
need to, but I just …don’t know how to release the tether that binds me to the
sense of unfairness, the wrongness in all that transpired.
We started the 10/11 school year off more frazzled than
intended. Between my surgery, recovery, looking for a new teaching position,
completing my Master’s degree, swim team, etc. I never managed to reset the
house to a state of peaceful calm. The kids and I jetted off as soon as swim
team ended for our first vacation since the dreadful back injury that ended my
tour of nursing 4 years before. Jus t a quick 3 day trip up to Colorado Springs
and back, but it was more than we’d done with each other in forever, and reminded
me of just how much I missed spending quality time with family.
Returning home proved hard, as it should at the end of a
vacation, but harder still given that I now had to return to the classroom two
weeks earlier than planned. Why? I accepted both a kinder position, AND agreed
to teach the extra JumpStart portion. Oh wow! My second year of teaching and I
somehow believed I could transition from 5th to K and stay sane!! Honestly,
I didn’t fair so badly – I adored my kinder kids…
… and then it all changed. A 5th grade position
opened up in our building; would I move up, they asked? I struggled with the
decision, shared concerns with my principal, checked in with family, and
ultimately agreed. Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t. Sometimes, I wish I’d never returned
to the school I loved so dearly. I might have avoided working alongside
teammates who despised my very existence, believing I’d robbed their friend of
her rightful place on the 5th grade team. Of course, I’d have to
give up the year I shared with my fifth graders, a year that proved
particularly special in forming a community of caring and sharing. With the
year that transpired, that’s not surprising – the bond formed with students one
of the few things in the year that I don’t regret.
A week into my new assignment, I broke my foot when a
damaged computer monitor decided to fall on it. Not a week later, Brother Bear
suffered a serious head injury. We’re talking traumatic brain injury with loss
of consciousness, dislocated collarbone, broken ribs, injuries to shoulder, arm
and neck. In two weeks time, I quickly lost three days of work. We shook it
off, and promised ourselves it could only get better.
Not according to the dental and oral surgeries that
followed, as teeth tend to fail following the summer of healing I’d just
encountered. Still I pushed through, until the day came when I received a text that
changed my eternity. You see, I made the wrong choice. I should have dropped
everything; taken the offered leave of absence, and simply shown up – for however
long necessary. Instead, I reacted. Again and again, and in the process failed the
child who repeatedly called out to me for help in any way possible. In fear, I
reacted to the threat of a job lost, a reputation tarnished, and allowed our
world to crumble.
In the absence of needed help, he became more ill. Mornings
turned to nightmares, and nights grew longer, until soon I didn’t return from
work until close to bedtime, fearing what I might find upon my return home. His dad enabled him, the school failed in providing sought after help, interruptions by phone peppered my instructional day, and the caustic, toxic environment I knew as my grade level team grew worse. I fought with my children, my ex, their school,
and myself. Nothing fit together well. Viruses hit our household, one after
another, and still we pressed on; still my child acted out, silently screaming
for help to an (unwittingly) unhearing parent, until it spiraled out of control.
Both A and N became ill yet again, but this early December
morning, my heart recognized it as serious. Fearing growing reprisals at work,
now devoid of the caring mentor I’d discovered in my original principal, I
begged their dad to come care for them in our home, and went to work. I went to work
and immersed myself in caring for other families’ children, unaware of the hell
my own endured, until finally he called to confirm what I’d known early on.
Appendicitis. N was having surgery that night. Crap.
And so I left, despite the grumblings of my colleagues that
followed me out the door. I left to care for my youngest, to hold her hand
through the hospital door. To hug my son, and realize how incredibly sick and
alone he felt. Tears coursed down my cheeks as I soaked in the disarray of my
clan. We had grown so far apart, so bereft of each other. I tried over the next
five days to make amends, to care for all that I’d ignored in my inattention.
Then the second scare hit – not only had Brother Bear removed himself from
participation in life, enduring soul crushing pain of migraines in isolation,
he’d become so ill that his platelet and white blood cell count suggested
possible leukemia. WTF?! And so I took another day, another two, and waited
while holding him, so far outgrown from my lap.
I believe the closeness, the bonding, the outpouring of hurt
and sharing of things too long left unsaid brought healing. His labs reversed,
he regained some energy, but still the effects of the traumatic brain injury
held sway over his life, and I recognized how badly he needed us to help and
support. We somehow muddled through the two short weeks separating us from
winter break. We found a counselor, stepped onto the path toward healing, unaware of the long journey ahead.
While we reconnected, rejuvenated, and healed in
togetherness, problems at work festered. I returned from break, and once again
faced a summons to the office. My job, as I’d feared, sat in jeopardy. No more
missed days allowed outside of death or hospitalization. Inwardly I wondered at
the lack of compassion, and railed at the injustice. Outwardly, I meekly agreed
and complied, tail tucked in submission. I’m convinced, as I look back, that I
returned home that night a broken person. And in true zombie fashion, I missed
every warning signal that announced impending danger.
A stopped attending school, made a second real attempt at
ending it all. He shut down, and I simply let him disintegrate while dashing
around like a Mad Hatter trying to pick up the pieces of my career in place of the home I knew not how to fix. N drank
like a fish, literally melted before my eyes, and we didn’t see it – not me,
not her dad, no one took notice, and 20 pounds vanished silently before our eyes, in the span of weeks. Neither child had willingly spent the night at their
Dad’s since winter break. We muddled through celebrations of their birthdays, and
I turned my focus and attention to report cards, insisting they finally spend
one freaking night with the other parent. Even though N complained of feeling sick, and stated that something was just wrong.
By 11 that fateful Friday night, her tear choked pleas
pulled me back to reality, forcing me to key into the message writhing
underneath. She came home, I held her until she fell asleep in my lap, and then
I kept working. In the middle of the night, she unleashed a torrent of vomit
unparalleled by any seen in the entirety of my nursing career. I cleaned her
up, scrubbed the bathroom, rocked her back to a fretful sleep, and again went
back to work. Again!! By mid Saturday, I anxiously told her sister that N’s breathing
reminded me of patients in metabolic acidosis. Still, she was drinking, peeing,
occasionally waking up, and talking. Everyone has asked at one time or another
if I am not guilty of incessant, unnecessary worrying, so once again I convinced myself it was okay and went
back to work. Sunday morning she actually seemed better. Got up, ate, drank
some more, still voiding, watched tv, etc.; but by night that horrid breathing
returned, and I – end of trimester grading sheets piled all around, grew more
fearful. I called her dad, shared my fears, and asked him to come over the next
morning. We had a plan. He would take her to the doctor’s; I would go to work and fend for my
life. I honestly believed this the best course of action. Or so I told myself. It's amazing the depth of self deception that paralyzing fear can drive us to.
9:30 am Monday, February 28th my classroom phone
rang during a grade level meeting, and I somehow knew to rush out and answer
it. Her dad, frantic, rambling about her eye’s rolling back, N incapable of standing up. I
yelled for him to call the EMTs. They came and thought it merely the flu. The lead
even came on the phone to talk to me, insisting she was dehydrated. “You don’t
understand,” I yelled, “she’s been drinking and peeing like crazy!!” He reiterated, it's probably just the flu. I doubted it, and the only flew I could think of was the
manner in which I left work. Principal nowhere in sight, 3rd grade
teacher angrily demanding my time, J.G. once again looking irritated, and a new mantra
coursing through my veins, “I simply don’t give a shit anymore. I am Out.”
I walked into Good Sam’s ER, found her room, and a nurse I’d
shared shifts with before said simply, “Oh, hi! You know she’s in DKA, right?” No, I didn't, but I should have. What.
The. Hell?!? I still feel that deep sense of utter despair envelope and crush
my heart at the mere memory of hearing that line. I said the damn words – metabolic acidosis. I am,
or was, a flipping nurse. I ALLOWED this - DKA- to happen. The doc struggled with the
decision on whether or not to transfer her to their adult ICU or down to
Children’s. After they hung the 3rb bag of IV fluids, pushed oral fluids, oral potassium and failed to notice her lagging level of consciousness, I demanded they send us to Children’s. It took another hour for air
transport to arrive – the flight for life jumpers completely freaked me out at first, but it turned out we were going
by bus. Only if things went south, would we travel the rest by chopper. God, it was worse
than I thought.
Just how much worse, I realized when we arrived at Children’s.
I knew what the picture that greeted us meant. This was a trauma response team,
emergency code, all hands on deck response. It is Not the kind you feel
relieved to see greeting your child, not when you have medical
experience and understand at a gut level the magnitude of Critical necessary to set that domino chain
into action. The endocrinologist confirmed these inner thoughts. “Your daughter’s
blood sugar levels aren’t that high, but her acidosis is significantly high that we are very concerned.
The next 12 hours are critical, and you need to prepare for the fact that she might not wake up.”
I have to face it, and I have such a hard time doing so. I
failed to respond to my son’s cries for help, to get him the support and rehabilitation
he needed. And then this – I had the background necessary to recognize what was
going on with N. I said the damn words and let my adult daughter talk me out of
going to the hospital. She wasn’t there, didn’t know and couldn't see the extent of illness' toll on her sister's body, but I did! I failed to
act, and nearly lost N as a result.
The rest of it all is still so fresh, vivid, stark in my
memory. Sitting at her bedside, entering grades on my school laptop – still intent
on complying with a job I knew was already dead. I held my breath waiting for
her to wake up. I think I’ve been holding my breath ever since. It beats
through my chest demanding to escape, but I lock it down tight and chant over
and over. Just make it through the night. Just make it through the arrogant nurse who proclaimed he knew better than the docs, rushing to bring her blood glucose down, ketone levels be damned.
Just make it through discharge. Just make it through education at the
center. Just make it through the ex calling the police for a well check our
first night home from ICU. Just make it through the next day, and the next,
until finally my termination is official and I no longer have an income. Just
make it through the next app, the next interview until it’s clear my former principal
refuses to see me teaching again. Just make it through the first week, the
first month, the first semester of middle school where it seems the challenges
they each face might never end. Fluctuating blood sugars, migraines, joint pain, puncture wounds, under educated health aides, teachers' failure to accommodate. I’m barely working, yet always busy, and the house remains
in disarray.
14 months from the beginning of this post, one month shy of
N’s first diaversarry, I’m still holding that breath in tight, so scared it’s
not done falling all apart. I’m scared – of the future, of the loss, of where
to go from here. I utterly failed my children, and I don’t know how to forgive
myself. Somehow, I’ve got to let go, move on, up and out from this year of
torment and hell. I want to grow, lift up, taking my children with me far, far
away from this space in time, until looking back brings but the faintest memory
of the shit we’ve left behind. I want to find the moment when my son no longer
resents me for all that I wasn’t and still haven’t become.
I’m reaching out towards … I don’t have a clue, but it’s
certainly somewhere and some when better than this. They deserve that much at
the very freaking least. And I think, having released a fraction of that pent up, fear choked breath, that I sense a glimmer of hope ahead.
1 comment:
Can they legally fire you for that? I would talk to a lawyer. Signed, a mom of a type 1 kid.
Post a Comment