Heavy Days That Lift The Weight

 I can't really tell you the details about some of the patients I deal with, but I can tell you that while I've been close to there, I have been blessed not to have stepped on those ... terrible moments.

Back in 1996, I dipped my toes into web design because I had a baby who was born three weeks before we had expected him to show up.  And When you're handed that sort of messy situation, you ... well, you deal.  

I will never forget the sound of my wife's voice.  I had a frozen pizza in the oven for the young lady and my wife, and I, and it was to be done soon.  My wife had gone into the master bedroom of our two-bedroom apartment, and there was this tone in her voice when she hollered my name.  It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck.

Her water had broken.  There we were, one of the snowiest Novembers we'd encountered, and it was November 15th.  Halfway through the month, and it was ... raining.  Yeah.  So I got my wife and her limited preparations down to the car, I'd remembered to turn off the stove and remove the pizza.  And we were indeed fortunate that we had cell phones then.

I was the driver of that particular bus.  Not because it was cool technology by any means.  But because, a few years before, a young mother, pregnant with her second child, her first in the back seat, and she found herself and her car in a flooded ditch.  She was able to extract her child and get out of the ditch, but it was cold - below freezing cold.  And they found her body and the body of her child in a field, some 200 yards from a house, and about the same distance from her car.

So yes, I had those visions flashing through my head when my wife announced we were again expecting a child.  I had four siblings, where she had one.  I had, through the many years, thought a two or three child family would be reasonable.  I did not remember many individual moments with either parent - they did exist, which is why I do recall them so vividly, but they were few and far between.  And with two kids, and the potential for twins, as they ran down both of our family lives, we knew then, we rather prudently decided to hold off.

But that evening of November 15, we had ... much trouble.  I was responsible for a wife who was in labor, in the hospital - which was not a place one would willingly also house a small health child who was expecting to tour potential new daycares the following day - as the only daycare she had known was closing at the end of the month.

So we had a full plate of ... well, I'm guessing succotash was as good a name as any.  I called the pre-agreed potential responsible individuals, they were not home - not surprising, as the first child had wandered out of the slot cut in my wife's belly because she was not at all interested in heading down the chute - not that it was big enough for her anyway.  There was no answer.  I tried several others.  One good friend was volunteering to come even though she had three kids at home.  Another lifesaver volunteered to crash at our apartment.  Fortunately.  So I got my baby girl back to her home, handed off the keys, and headed back to the hospital.  

Where the waiting became ... well, waiting.  It is what it is.  And then, almost a full 24 hours after the water broke, the doctors decided yet again we'd be doing surgery, the anesthetist was wise enough to remember the warning I'd given him a little over three years previously, and so nothing other than a signed form was all that took.  And then we were back in a basketball court/surgery theater.  No curtains hiding a screen, but they had listened to me and kept a screen between me and the ... invasive procedures they were doing.  Once again, as the regular doctor was not present, I waved off the opportunity to cut anything.  I was shaking.  There was no way I was going to hold a pair of scissors and snip a connection between my wife and her new baby.

I was thrilled when they announced "It's a boy!"  It was what I has secretly hoped for.  He had an older sister, but that would work out, I was sure, as his mother was the older sister to a young man who had some real challenges.  He has managed to overcome them now, but then he was neck deep in trouble.

But things were rather quickly closed up and people delivered to the appropriate destinations - within the building.  My daughter and the family friend who was watching her came to the hospital, and assured themselves that Mom was fine.  Groggy, in some distress from another surgery, but fine.  And then we took off down the hall to the nursery, where they warehouse the new kids.  And there was one missing that should have been there.  So I went around to another door, knocked on it, and the nurse led me into a back room.  The new-to-the-practice doctor at our pediatrician was on her second shift, and her first baby.  And I didn't like the look on her face.  Or the rather horrifying cry that was coming out of the baby in front of her.  

It turned out that what I knew about health care in 1996, and babies in particular, could have been dropped into a thimble and there'd be room left for a few cheesburgers.  Allegedly.

And I learned, that night.  The child who was laying on the counter in front of her was having some problems forcing the bad gasses out of his lungs.  It turned out that boys and girls develop differently in the womb.  That much I was fairly sure of, but then there were differences that weren't outwardly obvious.  Such as lungs.  I learned baby boys who were born premature had a pretty dangerous little window.  If they were born a month early, it might work.  If they were born a week early, they may be safe.  But male lungs take a few steps back in their development, and they can't exhale as well as they need to.  

And that evening I was so incredibly fortunate to have insurance that covered my family, because my son was whisked from the Burnsville hospital to Minneapolis Children's.  I'm fairly certain most of you do not know where it is, but you do now, because it's about two or three blocks north of Lake Street, which is one of the streets where things literally blew up last year after that policeman murdered George Floyd.  

So, even then, it wasn't in the best of neighborhoods.  And regrettably, it has not much improved.  But that night, I got into my Tempo and drove up I-35W into Minneapolis, and got off on Lake Street.  On a Friday night.  And went over a few blocks, and up.  And I found the parking ramp entrance.  I pulled in, looked around, and lowered my window and grabbed the ticket.  I don't recall if it was a pay week or an off week, and back then, we fairly regularly had financial situations that were tight.  I got out of the car, locked it - we had no fobs then - and headed into the hospital.  The security guard at the desk inside the door must have recognized the panicked look on my face, he smiled, handed me a sheet of paper, and asked for my parking ticket.  They would validate any parent who was visiting their child in the hospital, he said.  And I sagged a little bit with relief.

I followed the map he gave me, and found the NICU - Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.  There's four letters that pretty much shove an icicle into your heart when you have a baby.  A nurse recognized my panicked look, and I said "John Dominik".  She asked me if that was my name or the baby's name.  I said "Both".  My wife and I had discussed it long before, and the baby, if a little boy, would be named after his father and both grandfathers - and quite a few more going back on my side, as my father had been digging into the family tree and was finding Johans in Germany in our direct ancestors, so one does not mess with that.

She smiled and brought me over to a corner where my little baby was.  He had a pair of sunglasses velcroed over his eyes, and he was under what seemed to be a tanning lamp.  Because he needed other help.  And he was in a plastic tent that was pushing much more oxygen into his environment to assist his breathing.  That image you see over to the right there was taken the next day, I believe.  When he was doing much better.

I very much wanted to let my wife know he was going to be OK, because all of the nurses assured me he was fine.  But I was not allowed to use a cell phone in the NICU, and it was already a little after midnight.  So yeah, I drove down to a really rough neighborhood on a Friday night in freezing rain, and ... well, I got there.

I stayed a couple of hours, and assured them I would be back.  I went down to the gift shop, which was still open, and found a couple of Beanie Babies.  I thought that was cute, and reminded myself to get to the gift shop with my daughter the next day, because she was very concerned about her baby brudder, she said.

I got home, and realized I'd given my keys to my friend who was watching over my daughter.  So I parked outside, went into the lobby, and called up to my apartment.  After three tries, she answered, I gave her the quick overview and asked if she could let me in.  She did.  I went up, woke my daughter, and told her her brother would be fine, we'd see him tomorrow.

I slept late that Saturday morning - all the way until 9 am - and then answered the phone and told my wi
fe he would be just fine.  She wanted me to take some pictures.  I had a then new Digital Camera - the sort that were a couple of thousand dollars twenty-five years ago - but it was on it's way out the door into the trash because it wasn't what my employer of the time wanted.  After deprecating it out of the assets database, removing the asset tag, and removing it from the premises, I guess it was mine.  Or the garbage man's.  I was able to replace the parts that needed to be replaced (it was determined a better piece of equipment was needed anyway, since this thing was nearly a decade old at the time it went ... out of the door), so I took some pictures of him.  

Yesterday, when he was at work, they heard an odd noise coming out of the car he was working near.  He and another fellow stepped closer.  And the noise was clearer.  As Jack said, it took about ten seconds for a bunch of mechanics to go into full firefighter mode, get the car up on a lift, and they started carefully and quickly removing panels and parts to find the mewling kitten, who had gotten trapped in the vehicle.  It came out fine, and went home with one of the techs.

So I done good.  He started with a few challenges before him, but he's turned into a hell of a man.  One I'm very proud to know.  And I'm a little pleased I had a part in helping to turn him into the man he has become.  And I'm deeply honored.