First, I just want to say to all my regular readers (all 2 or 3 of you) that I am SO sorry I haven't been able to update this thing in a month. Patience is a virtue, and if you continue to be patient, you'll hear more of what's been happening.
Another VERY IMPORTANT announcement. To make sure this post, which will have quite a serious tone, does not go too far down a bad road, I want to first announce (finally) that:
HEIDI AND I ARE HAVING A BOY!!! We are both SO excited. So, we're expecting the arrival of Owen Christopher Mallow sometime in early April. Personally, I'm hoping for April 6, to make my parents happy; that's their anniversary.
Now to more serious matters. The next few posts might be a bit longer than others I've been writing. In fact, I'm breaking this up into a few posts that I'm going to do this weekend. I think it's critical to put down a lot of what's been happening to me and what I've learned from it. Let me preface all this by saying that I'm LEARNING these lessons, I don't have them down by rote yet. I still have a long way to go to assimilate these into my conscious thought, attitude, and actions.
The first instance I'm going to discuss is from mid-October, when my son Connor had to go in for some oral surgery at Children's Hospital here in Denver. I've been to Children's a few times, mostly for Donovan when he went in after falling out the window in August of 2005. Children's Hospital always strikes me as a very strange place, a place of amazing contrast. When you think of children, you usually, quite naturally, think of happiness, innocence, and play. You think of your own childhood, in which you are usually able to blot out any negativity or tragedy. This is the first great contrast of Children's Hospital; it represents something we all believe children should never have to face: trauma and tragedy. For this reason, Children's is a place a despair. There are always parents in varying amounts of pain and anguish, not for themselves, of course.
At the same time, Children's Hospital is true to its name; it is a hospital that specializes in neonatal and pediatric care, and its doctors are among the finest in the country in their respective fields. It prides itself on being able to handle just about any special pediatric medical needs that should arise, and to provide the best possible care and the greatest chance for a successful recovery. This make Children's a place of great hope. As a parent, when your child goes to Children's, no matter their situation, you know that you're getting the best chance for your child.
On this particular Friday, I had taken off work for a few hours to be there when he went in and when he got out. I arrived at the hospital and took the long walk to the surgery area. Taking this long walk from most of the entrances, including the entrance I took, takes you directly into the heart of the high-tragedy area. The surgery area at Children's is, for obvious reasons, right next to both the NICU/PICU area and the emergency area. I reached the surgery check-in area for Connor, and they pointed me to his waiting area. Of course, to reach your designated area, they have animal-track stickers on the floor in varying colors that lead you to the correct surgery area from the three that are available. As I recall, I had to follow the purple dinosaur tracks. When I arrived, he had already changed and was getting ready to go in. In fact, they were getting ready to wheel him out of his pre-op room as I arrived, so I had cut it pretty fine indeed.
Lisa and I both got to go with him to the operating room. I was pleasantly surprised that we were allowed to go. After years of watching medical dramas on TV, even I know that you're not supposed to go in the OR without putting on scrubs and washing up and all that. We even got to be there with him as they put him under. I was very happy to be there. They told us to talk with him and smile and be cheerful. They put the mask on him, Lisa and I talked to him, his eyes got heavy, then fluttered a little bit, and then he was out. While I was glad I could be there for it, it was an unsettling feeling, watching my son all ready for surgery, with the mask on, then watching him slowly close his eyes...it was eerie. Knowing the sorts of complications that can arise from even the simplest surgeries, and especially for children, my mind let the worst thought creep in: that my son might have just closed his eyes for the last time. I privately asked Jesus to take those thoughts away, and I felt better.
I went out to the surgery waiting area. I didn't exactly feel comfortable sitting with Lisa and her parents, so I found a quiet spot for myself. This was tougher than you might think; the waiting room was quite full. I counted at least 12-15 other groups of parents or families, all waiting as patiently as possible for some word on their child's situation. The room is actually a bit grim. No one looks very happy, and this made perfect sense to me. I wasn't very happy. I played games on my Treo smartphone and listened to others' conversations from time to time. Every once in a while I'd take a break and look around a little, while we waited. There were relaxed faces and grim ones. One father was on his cell phone giving a status report to someone else, and he sounded very tentative, both in his words and his voice. Many parents were fitful or restless. I could certainly relate to that.
After a while, I decided to try to take a walk. I wandered down a hallway and found myself at the entrance to the NICU. As Heidi is pregnant and was then as well, I thought I might like to see what life is like for those who have had trouble coming into the world. I reached the doorway but thought better of trying to go in. I did notice, however, large pictures along the walls. There would be a picture of a very small baby, usually sleeping, always with lots of tubes and wires and medical apparati all around it. With each picture was a small placard giving the baby's name and reason for being in the NICU. These pictures were often very sad, not because they were grotesque in any way, but because it's always horrible to ponder the plight of infants in facing such challenges. It was a sobering reminder to me, months later....but we'll come back to that. After looking at several of these photos, I noticed that each photo was only half of a pair of photos. Next to each shot of an infant in the NICU, there was a larger photo of a happy child, sometimes toddler age, sometimes much older...the oldest child was 10 years old. I finally came out of the semi-stupor of worry for Connor that I was in, to realize that this was the NICU's Hall of Fame; these children were the success stories. The first photo of the pair showed them at their worst, when the situation seemed bleak. The second of each pair showed them triumphant, having emerged from the difficulty relatively unscathed, happy, and healthy.
This led me to consider how it must be for the staff, the doctors and nurses, who come to this place every day to work. How difficult it must be, especially for those in the NICU, or emergency, or surgery, to face their work every day and put on that brave face of hope and strength, knowing that many of those children they deal with won't be able to make it back to their home and family? I know being a doctor and dealing with life and death every day must be taxing enough...how much more so when all your patients are children, who are never supposed to have to deal with such horrific tragedy? Do some doctors and nurses become bitter, facing such harsh reality and finding little of the fulfillment they probably hoped to find when they took the job or started down that career path? Do they retain the idealism that many of them no doubt started with? Do any become like the veteran soldier or cop, watching death every day and going through life detached, having "seen it all?" Or does the fulfillment shown in those Hall of Fame photos make up for all the terrible possibilities and realities, the knowledge that they have done their best and saved so many? What joy or positive outcomes do they see that make it worth doing every day?
Leaving these pensive thoughts in my wake, I ambled back down to the surgery waiting room. It had been close to an hour and we had gotten no word from the doctor. She had told us it shouldn't be more than an hour, and they didn't seem delayed in any way when we took him in. This caused me great consternation and I began to worry a bit more than I already had been. I looked around the room again, and I saw many parents who looked rather...well, not poor, but not well-off, either. I wondered about them, knowing first-hand from Donovan's situation the kinds of charges that the modern healthcare system can rack up for you. I hoped many would not end up with burdens too great to bear, for behind this fine facility with its excellent doctors is still the unrelenting machine of healthcare in America. Thinking about it sure straightened me out. Donovan's emergency room visit after his fall, along with the subsequent checkups, had cost us over $5000, which we are still paying to this day. I could only wonder what amounts these other families would have to deal with.
An hour became an hour and a quarter, then an hour and twenty minutes. Finally, the doctor emerged to let us know that Connor was fine and that the surgery ran longer because she found some more work she needed to do while she was in there. He ended up losing a few molars and having caps put on a few more. With the baby teeth he'd already lost in the front, he came out looking like a hockey player. I was just thrilled that he was OK, since I was really starting to sweat by the end.
I was glad I'd gotten to go. Children's is a place of great contrast. I was able to discover some perspective of my own while I was there that day.
Thanks for reading along...next installment is tomorrow.
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