TheBanyanTree: Change of Plans

[B Drummond]

Working on putting up Christmas decorations at this time of the year, 
that's normal.  Hanging baubles, ornaments, garland, and lights is part 
and parcel for the season.   Traditions still hold sway at our home.

Getting a phone call from our middle daughter in the emergency room of 
a local hospital waiting area, her in tears,  telling us through sobs 
that she was all right but that she was there agonizing over her 
roomate's survival, well, that's not normal for our household at this 
time of the year . . . or ANY time of the year.

They say that this kind of thing is not unheard of, that the holidays 
bring out the best and the worst in people.  Some even become so 
despondent that they want to take their life.  Some do.  Our daughter's 
roommate  had reached that point.

Arriving at the hospital emergency room at 1 am , seeing our daughter 
in tears, hearing the cries and moans from the sick that waited for 
emergency care, and hearing the news of her roommate's current 
condition took something out of me.  Inside, I felt like a deflated 
balloon, like I had collapsed in on myself and could find no support on 
which I could pull myself back up. Outward I may have stood just as 
tall and appeared strong, with the exception of what might pass for 
watery eyes from sinus problems or something similar, but inward . . . 
inward I was a pool of liquidated nerve endings lying on the waiting 
room floor.

"Mom, I'm so worried about her.  I came in around 9:15 tonight to find 
her collapsed on the kitchen floor, her face bruised,  blood dried on 
her mouth and her in a strange, twisted fetal position.  When I first 
saw her from a distance I thought she was making a joke of lying there.  
But when I saw her face I lost control and ran to get help from 
friends.  When they arrived we called 911."

My daughter had friends in the waiting room to help support her.  For 
that we were very grateful.

"I rode here with her in the ambulance. She came in with a pulse so low 
they could barely discern it.  When they started treatment on her she 
began to whip about violently, to seizure. She's arms are strapped down 
to the bed and she raises up and twists and jerks and screams, and oh 
my Lord, Mom, her eyes. Her eyes are so dialated that you can only see 
the hollow black.  I can't look into her eyes in the few, very few 
times that they have popped open.  They were so bad that when the 
doctor on duty checked her he had to ask me what color her eyes were," 
my daughter said through tears.

"The doctor says that she isn't reacting like she took only the pills 
we found in our apartment.  She's not getting better after pumping her 
stomach and other treatments.  They put a catheter in her and tubes and 
hoses and oxygen and I watched it all.  I can't stand much more." she 
said. "Her Mom is on the way.  We called her as soon as we could get 
our wits together but it will take her 4 hours hard driving," my 
daughter continued. "And she left a suicide note of two pages."

We waited and prayed and worried until my daughter's friends left.   
Then my wife and daughter (I was not allowed in at that time) went to 
see her.   I paced like a man waiting for his execution at sunrise.

"I'm worried she won't make it," my wife said in tears when they 
returned.  "She looks so bad that I didn't recognize her when I saw 
her.   All I knew to do was to tell her that we loved her, that God 
loved her, that she was in a hospital and was going to be all right.  
And we prayed for God to heal her and save her life."

Between then and when a nurse came out about an hour and a half later 
our daughter detailed the events of the day.  She told us that the 
police were investigating and that she had given a statement to them, 
along with the note found at their apartment and the empty bottle of 
pills.

I feared we would witness the awful finality of a young life wasted by 
deception and self loathing.  Inside,  I still could not pull myself 
back up from the floor.  And I worried now that if she did survive that 
she might be so brain damaged that she would have no life.

After that hour and a half interval a nurse returned, the first that I 
had seen or heard mention anything about my daughter's roommate, and 
told us hurriedly, "We're moving her to intensive care.  You can go 
with us."

"How is she now?" we asked.

"She's coming out of it.  She's improving," the nurse said.  "You'll 
see. Come on, we have to hurry."

"How are her vital signs?" I asked.

"They're looking good," was the answer.

And there she was,  strapped to the bed they hurriedly tried to prepare 
to wheel down the hall and into the elevator. 

In almost unintelligible speech, she asked hoarsely,  "What time is 
it?" and made an attempt with eyes that had no hazel in them anymore, 
eyes that contained only pupils and white, that darted, closed, popped 
back open to locate a clock on the wall.

I took that for a very good sign and could not hold back tears any 
longer.   She was going to live, I thought, she's going to live!

We escorted the nurses and her to ICU.   Afterward she only wanted to 
see my daughter and before she went to sleep told her to not tell 
anyone what she had done.

We waited in ICU until her mother came in around 4 o'clock a.m.  We got 
home at 6 a.m.

I like to think we saw a miracle this morning.  I like to think that 
when my wife and daughter went into her room she heard someone say they 
loved her, that God loved her, that she was going to be all right.  And 
I like to think she believed it.  

And I like to think she and God, each doing the parts they had control 
over, changed some bad plans to something we all can live with better 
now.



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