Post 5
Once Frank was done getting the MRI, they brought us back upstairs. Not back to the room he’d occupied for the last week, though- we went instead to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU). The orderly pushing Frank’s gurney ran his badge over the sensor, and the double doors whooshed open. He continued in, but I stopped. I couldn’t make myself walk for a few extra seconds. I watched as the gurney continued into the PICU and around the corner. Anne, the social worker, was still with me. She nudged me and murmured something, and I started walking again.
The room Frank was wheeled into was one of the first on the unit after you entered via the back entrance. A nurse, who introduced herself as Tori, was waiting for us. Another nurse entered, they transferred Frank to the bed, and the orderly left with the gurney. The other nurse also left, and Tori started getting Frank settled in- hooking him up to various monitors, checking his vitals, doing neuro checks. I stood at the doorway watching, not sure what to do.
“Have you told Darrel?” I was startled by the question from Anne, who stood to the back and right of me. I turned and looked at her.
“What do I tell him?”
Anne brought me to a floor lounge and closed the door behind me. We sat down. “Darrel needs to know what’s going on,” she said. “I can be with you when you call him and tell him.”
I just stared at her. “What do I say? How do I tell him this? Is Frank dying? I don’t know what to do!”
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“Just…tell him what you know so far,” she said.
I mechanically got my cell phone out, and dialed my husband’s cell phone number. When Darrel answered the phone, I started sobbing. I don’t really remember what I said to him, but I remember the sound of his voice as he said, “Wait, what? What happened? What do you mean he’s in the PICU??” I sobbed even after I got off the phone with him. I sobbed until my eyes were swollen and dry because I had no tears left.
I was somehow back in Frank’s room. The social worker was no longer with me. I was sitting on the parent bed, by the window. Frank always preferred his hospital rooms to be dim, so I had closed the blinds and turned off the lights. The only illumination in the room came from the machines. I just sat and stared at my son, who had been unresponsive since the MRI; I think they sedated him for the MRI, to make sure he didn’t move, and he was still sleeping that off.
Tori came back in to check on something. She was doing something with one of the machines when the door to the room when a door opened and a head poked in.
“Hi, it’s Dr H, I’m here to see how Frank is doing…”
Frank’s oncologist. The one who had pooh-poohed our concerns, who had been impatient with our questions this whole time. And here she was like it was just an ordinary day, no big deal.
I didn’t make a decision, I just acted. I leaped up from where I was sitting, dropping Frank’s clothing to the floor. I headed across the room and started screaming.
“You did this to him!! Look at him!! LOOK AT HIM!!” I lunged at the doctor, who, with a startled look on her face, jumped back into the hallway. Tori, who had clearly seen some things in her nursing career, was suddenly right there, with her arms wrapped around me, as I kept screaming, ‘GET OUT!! GET OUT!! I DON’T WANT YOU TOUCHING HIM!!” The doctor beat a hasty retreat, and I dropped to the ground, where I sat and started to sob again. Tori helped me to my feet and guided me back to the parent bed, grabbing Frank’s clothing from the floor and handing it to me. I sat alternately silent and sobbing, clutching Frank’s clothing to my chest, until Darrel walked in.
