After Blake had been transferred to the care of the ER staff, one of the gentleman from the MedFlight came to find me. There were tears in his eyes as he said, “I’m so sorry, ma’am. We did everything we could for him.” He wasn’t telling me Blake was gone, but I knew he didn’t expect the little boy who had been in his care to live. His seeking me out was yet another kindness, one of many that kept me from drowning in the enormity of it all.
I would later find out that the doctor sought my family out just before we arrived to tell them to brace themselves; they did not expect Blake to live. At one point, the doctor came in to tell me his initial CT scans weren’t showing any brain activity. I just kept shaking my head no and repeating to people, “That will change. God didn’t bring him back to leave him a vegetable.”
For a second time that night, Blake was cleaned up and we were ushered in to say goodbye. He was unrecognizable with his swollen, bruised face and the tubes coming from his mouth and arms. The hospital chaplain was there. As I gazed down at my son, so many emotions swirling within me, he patted my hand and said, “Maybe now you realize you should have had a helmet on him.”
I blinked and looked at him. It wouldn’t be the last time I heard that sentence, but it was definitely the least appropriate. I don’t remember responding. I wasn’t arrested or anything, so I’m pretty sure I only imagined inflicting bodily harm on him. The man had the audacity to want to lead a prayer after that. I didn’t want him to pray for my son. I didn’t want him to touch my hand. I didn’t want him anywhere near either of us. Now, years later, I remember that moment as a lesson in the harm we can cause when speaking our opinion matters more than speaking grace and love into someone’s life. I learned from his mistake. I can only hope he did as well.
Chapter Three
Three pages is a short chapter, even for me. But given that I let another month lapse in between writing sessions, I decided that was perhaps a good place to pull back a bit. It’s been a very long time since I’ve let a story meander from my head to the keyboard in this way, not when it’s something that tumbles out so easily when I actually sit to type. I realized as I re-read these pages how fundamentally that moment and the days to follow changed me.
Before the accident, I had been preparing. I felt deep in my soul that God was calling us to something else, and the kids and I felt this overwhelming pull to leave the city. My on again, off again desire to return home to the Ozarks had become a full-blown obsession for both me and my boys. I was learning all I could about homesteading. I didn’t really know why or for what, but I was preparing for something.
I can say the accident coming wasn’t even remotely on my radar. It’s funny, even now, years later, our family refers to it as “the accident.” It doesn’t need a further name than that; we know exactly what we’re talking about and are a little surprised when someone doesn’t. Perhaps that should be uppercase, but I digress. I’m procrastinating again.
The next few days were a haze; we were sustained by God and the kindness of those around us. Every time the medical professionals would proclaim the worst, it would be countered by a glimmer of hope and a skosh of forward progress.
“There is no brain activity on the scans. We’ll do another scan tomorrow and see.” Blake squeezed my fingers, seemingly in response to my voice. Hope renewed. Next they said, “If he doesn’t wake up by tomorrow, we’ll need to do surgery to alleviate the pressure.”
With that pronouncement, my sisters—unbeknownst to me—called the local Christian radio station to tell them the story and ask for prayer. The entire city began to pray for our son. Strangers would pop their head in the room to say, “I’m praying for you.”
The next morning, his eyes fluttered open. The accident happened on March 31st. April 1st, my oldest sister’s birthday, had been spent in a haze of prayer. April 5th, my mom’s birthday, Blake woke up. When the breathing tube came out, my mother and I stood on either side of him, holding his hands and trying to reassure him he was okay. He’d been in an accident, and he was in the hospital, but he would be all right. His first words were, “Can I have some vegetables please?” My mother and I laughed and promised him all the vegetables he wanted. (He doesn’t remember that now and has pretty staunchly refused to eat vegetables since. Figures.)
There are things I want to share, pieces of the story that matter, but they are a jumble in my mind. I remember my former pastor being one of the first people there–even though the latest upheaval in my marriage had led us to leave his church with hard feelings all around. He was there when we needed him. I remember my dearest friend taking my other two children out for dinner the night of the accident. My sister taking them home with her.
Blake’s first roommate was an eighteen-year-old with a heart condition. When my sister’s pastor would come by to pray, his voice was louder than Blake’s roommate felt comfortable with. The louder that pastor would pray, the louder the other patient would cuss us. I suggested to the pastor that he pray quieter or from the waiting room. Still, the hospital moved us to a different room with a different roommate. That roommate was a little boy named James, who was battling his second round of brain cancer. His mom had other children, including a brand new baby. I cannot even fathom the trials she was facing.
A friendship would blossom between the two of us over the coming days. Sadly, James lost his fight—later, after our lives had largely parted ways. Thanks to Facebook, we stay in touch. Though we’re not a part of each other’s daily world, I still feel a deep connection with this woman, one that I’ll never be able to fully convey.
Another memory is Blake’s nurse, Dan. All of the nurses were amazing, but he stood out. He was so kind and gentle. A less pleasant memory was the day after Blake’s breathing tube came out. He kept having painful coughing spasms that would fill me with a desperate need to help him, to ease his suffering. He was in the middle of one such spasm when a woman approached me, calling my name.
“Yes?” I glanced over my shoulder at her, irritated.
“I’m with patient accounts, and you have a deductible.”
“I’m in the middle of something here.” My son was blue, in a coughing spasm that wracked his entire body, with tears streaming down his cheeks. Mind you, his face was still swollen and black and blue as well.
“Well, I need to collect the deductible from you before I can go.”
“Then you’ll have to wait here a minute…”
I came close to being curt. My sisters later found out—they were more like a force of nature descending on hospital administration. My sisters are amazing like that.
The hospital had requested that there be only two visitors at a time in ICU, and that they be immediate family. One of our family members couldn’t understand that this request was for Blake’s benefit—the last thing he needed was germs to fight—and kept a steady stream of strangers coming by the room, no matter how many times or ways I asked it to stop. Oddly enough, that was the thing that left me sobbing in the bathroom. I was sure my son would die from a cold brought to him by somebody who’d come to gawk.
It was my middle sister who took me in her arms, right there in the bathroom, and prayed that God’s peace would cover and sustain me. And it did; I could feel it wrapping all around me like a warm blanket. You know, it was that same sister who held me in her arms in a different hospital bathroom as I cried years before when our grandfather died. I wonder sometimes if my sisters know how crucial they are to me, how pivotal they were to my becoming who I am.
It might sound odd to say there was anything about that time that I liked, but I actually loved the presence of God—every Christian who came to visit us said they could feel it the instant they hit the waiting room. It’s not surprising, though. I and my family prayed as we’ve never prayed before.
I fasted and prayed at Blake’s bedside until he woke up. After he woke up, I started slipping away once a day to eat with my other two boys in the hospital cafeteria, who were brought by to at least see
their parents. Eventually, I chased Adam home to be with them. I couldn’t tear myself away. Once in ten days, I went home to shower and hug my kids, but I couldn’t bear to be away from Blake and was back within two hours.
For the first five days, I sat in a straight-backed chair right next to Blake’s bed. It was a Spartan piece of wood furniture, not at all comfortable, but I didn’t care. I occasionally dozed off with my head resting on the railing of his bed. I did nothing but hold his hand and pray. By the time he woke up, someone had produced a comfortable chair for me to live in. I’d also started taking small breaks to visit with my family in the waiting room. Hearing their voices, their stories, even their laughter kept me going. There was such an outpouring of love and support.
I’d like to believe my family’s presence there blessed others, too. One mom came up and asked us how we were so calm in such a terrible place–she’d heard Blake’s story and her own son was in a coma. We talked to her about our faith, and she asked us to pray with her. We did, happily. Her son woke up from his coma that evening. We would see them again—later, when both boys had moved on to rehab. I’m not sure what happened to them after our stories parted ways, though.
At one point, another family filled the halls, their grief permeating the entire floor as they spoke with hospital staff about organ donation; their little boy hadn’t made it. After a little while, my mother walked up to one of the women and apologized for intruding before saying, “Can I pray with you?” The woman agreed and the two prayed together before the woman collapsed into my mother’s arms, crying and clinging to a stranger.
I’m not sure if it was my mother listening to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, if her heart recognized the pain of losing a child—having lost her own son years ago—or a combination of the two, but the boldness she showed that day wasn’t normal for her. She later said she had no idea what came over her. But I’m glad she did it. I’ve always been proud of my mama, but that moment so beautifully illustrates why.
When I was little, my family lived in Florida. If a hurricane came, Mom would pack us kids up and take us home to the family farm in the Ozarks while we waited out the storm. Daddy always stayed behind with the house. There is a favorite story of one particular storm, when traffic was bad getting out of town and looting rampant, that mom put a hatchet under her seat in case someone stopped our car and gave us trouble. The woman is five feet tall if she stands up real straight, and she had an ax under her seat to keep her babies safe.
That same woman held a stranger in her arms and grieved openly with her over the loss of her young son. My mother is the very definition of feminine strength.
Chapter Four
Before Blake was released from the hospital, it was decided he would be treated at Ranken Jordan Pediatric Bridge Hospital. Dr. Evra came out from the hospital to evaluate him, and I remember the conversation with him was the first time since the ordeal began that I felt hope I would someday get my son back.
You see, Blake’s injury was to his frontal lobe where personality is stored. Blake, who had always had more personality than any one person can contain, had been restored to us as a virtual zombie. He had no facial expressions. His voice was soft. Interacting with others, even watching television, exhausted him.
After he graduated from ICU, he’d been transferred to a different floor, and initial rehab began. The hospital’s PTs and OTs were amazing. One PT in particular stands out in my memory. Those sessions were darn near unbearable for me, to watch my emotionless little boy struggle to do things he’d been able to do with ease since toddlerhood. During one particular session, I think the PT could tell by the look on my face I was at my breaking point. She pulled me aside to promise me it would get better. Our son was still in there; it would just take time to find him again. I wept.
But once Dr. Evra came into the picture, I latched on to hope again. There was something reassuring in his presence. He was honest but hopeful and had a way of communicating that infused me with strength.
Blake was sent home from the hospital a mere ten days after the accident. We’d set up a recliner in the living room for him where he slept with his dog on his lap. His first night home, one of the teachers from the boys’ school brought us fast food. It wasn’t how we’d planned, but we finally tried the new Culver’s in town.
I began writing this story in the fall, and now it’s nearly spring. As I sit here trying to remember exactly what happened when to lay it out coherently, I realize that some of my procrastination stems from just that—it’s almost physically painful to sort through the memories, to turn them into something someone else could understand or follow. So, I will do my best to summon them in order, to catch and categorize the butterflies of thought.
I remember the thought of all-day rehab was a scary one, for both Blake and myself. With every doctor agreeing that if Blake ever fully recovered, it would be years of hard work, I left my corporate job without a backward glance. Adam and I knew that decision would most likely cost us our home. When the market tanked in 2008, we’d found ourselves instantly upside down, which raised the escrow portion of our payment. Somehow, between 2008 and 2011, our payment had doubled. My job at Scottrade was over half of our family’s income; we could not survive without it. But we also couldn’t fathom sending our tiny, broken son to all-day rehab at a place for the sickest of the sick all by himself.
Some decisions we look back on and bicker about whose idea it really was and if it was for the best. Not that one. If you would ask either of us to this day—even knowing the great price we would eventually pay for that decision—we both stand solidly by it.
Ranken Jordan turned out to be a happy place, as happy as a place like that can be, anyway. The walls were brightly painted, and I think there was a fish tank. I know there was an air hockey table and basketball hoops. Blake and I played countless hours of air hockey there. His therapy could almost be measured by air hockey. The first tentative games were played from his wheelchair, his face expressionless while he tapped the puck so gently it couldn’t make its way back to my side of the table without me coming around to give it a nudge. Over the next few months, he morphed into a normal-looking boy who would grin wickedly at me as he zinged one my way.
Dr. Evra warned us that Blake’s taste buds would be altered by the accident, and that they would change over time as his brain and the impacts of the injury changed. He told me not to worry about typical picky-eater type fights, to just let Blake eat whatever sounded good. Two things that have sounded good to Blake since those early days of rehab that he continues to eat in mind-boggling quantities are chicken fingers with ketchup and pizza—only now the pizza has hot sauce on it, and the amount of ketchup has lessened a bit.
When he first started learning to feed himself again, it was a messy process, made messier by the fact that he wanted the plate to be a pool of ketchup. I mean it. We’re talking obscene amounts of the stuff. Horror flicks could be filmed with less. It would get on his face, his clothes. One day, a little girl sitting at the table with him commented on it. His expression still held no emotion at the time, but he admitted to me later that he was embarrassed by how he ate. That, like so many of the other effects of the accident, waned over time. He mastered eating, but he still sometimes asks if I remember how messy he’d been back in those early days, followed by a quiet comment that it was embarrassing.
But then he re-learned everything. I remember watching him fumble with a vest in OT, buttoning and unbuttoning it over and over again, retraining the muscles in his hands to do something that had once come so naturally. My fingers would itch to help him. I’d sit on my hands, knowing my help would hinder him in the long run.
One of the friends Blake made at Ranken Jordan was a sixteen-year-old boy who’d been shot in the face during a gang war. They made an unlikely pair playing basketball, the lanky African-American teen and my wobbly eight-year-old. He’d been so good at basketball before the accident. Now he had to throw a foam ball, and it seldom m
ade it half the distance to the hoop. But, oh how happy he was when he made that first basket again.
Blake had a birthday during his rehab days. They celebrated with a party. His therapists, his doctor, and all of the staff were amazing; they were angels. I’ll never be able to tell them enough how wonderful they were.
It’s funny how some things about it are such a blur, but if I sit and really think about it, I can remember the smell. I can remember the feel of the place. Sitting quietly in a dark room so Blake could nap—at that time, and for years to come, Blake was unable to sleep without me close by. I remember how desperately he wanted to be able to run again and that his favorite days were swim therapy. And I remember how his PT made climbing stairs an adventure, like we were going to visit a super-secret tower. At the time, the effort it took him to climb stairs was probably equivalent to scaling a tower.
Blake worked incredibly hard during his time at Ranken, but he found a lot of smiles there, too. And while he’s not the kind of person to talk about it, I think he found a strength there that most people will never understand.
Happy-go-lucky, slightly spacey, sometimes spastic Blake is the strongest person I know. By September of that year, just six months after being admitted to the rehab facility, he was released. Dr. Evra couldn’t explain it, but Blake had yet again defied all expectations and was pronounced healed.
That pronouncement would come after a bit of debate, though. Just before it, Blake had returned to the hospital for yet another scan, followed by a visit with his neurologist. She’d said he was nothing short of a miracle, but there was a small, unidentified spot at the center of his brain. Because of that, she didn’t think he should ever ride a horse, ride a bike, play sports… as she rattled off a list of things he could never do again, I watched my son, who had fought so hard and come so far, shrink under the weight of her words.
My Own Ever After: A Memoir Page 3
