“He came in complaining that he was tired and dizzy and he was asleep for a while, but now we’re having trouble waking him up. Do you have any tips or tricks? The sternum rub didn’t work…”
A moment later, I hit the end button on my phone and I grab my bag and keys and head out the door for the high school. Am I wearing a bra? Do I have deodorant on? Maybe the sound of my voice will help… maybe the length of time will help…by the time I get there maybe he’ll be awake.
I pray as I drive and I take a deep breath. Don’t live on adrenaline like this, I chide myself. Maybe it’ll be okay and you’ll leave the school together in minute.
I want to park in the school drive with my flashers on. I just want to get to him, but I take the extra moment to choose a parking space… just in case they need to get an ambulance into the drive, I think morbidly. Someone sees me park and says they might ticket my car since it’s staff parking and I reply that I’m heading to the nurses’ office for my son and I’ll take my chances. I make a mental note to tell someone where my car is so I don’t get ticketed.
The first thing to hit me in the nurses’ office is the impression of worried faces. “Come on through”, they motion. Chase is in the backroom on one of the beds. His face is so peaceful. There’s a monitor attached to his finger showing good numbers. His eyes move behind his eyelids like a restless sleeper and someone gently pulls back his eyelids to show how his pupils respond to the light. He’s not having a seizure.
In fact, he looks so animated , so completely “normal”, that I find myself wanting to shake him and yell “Stop faking! Wake up now!” But I know… Chase’s loss of executive function makes him uniquely incapable of purporting a falsehood of any kind for more than a few seconds. He just doesn’t have it in him – the edges of him mouth starting to turn up if he even tries.
The edges of his mouth don’t move, not even when he hears my voice. I take a deep breath and rub his chest where I know the rash from his heart monitor still sits on his skin. If he could respond, he would have bellowed and slapped at my hand for that. We – a nurse and I – sit him up, his head flopping almost precariously to one side… we lay him back gently and then shake and chafe at arms, legs, fingers… calling… pleading…commanding. Redoing all the things they’d been doing before I showed up, this time with my voice added. “Chase, you need to wake up now, buddy. If you can hear me, wake up.”
I hear myself babbling to the nurses about the difficulty of knowing what to do…how long to wait before calling. I point to him and say how he seems so clearly and clinically fine… his breath, his numbers, all of it… so perfect, and yet the very fact that he was not able to be roused indicates that he also wasn’t fine.
Their faces look increasingly worried. I am too. It’s been too long. The heart in me is crying out now but I don’t want to be hasty. Maybe he will wake on his own. I hate this conundrum moment.
I remember saying that I didn’t know what call to make and hearing someone else say that they didn’t like it. And in that moment, I knew… better to call for nothing than wish I’d called earlier.
“Make the call”, I think I said. The school resource officer stood next to me, her hand on my arm. Chase and I tease about the resource officer. I say that she is my friend and likes me better. He says that he is her favorite. It’s one of the things I tease him about to get him to smile on the rough days before he walks into the building. Right now, she’s my favorite as she quietly speaks into her radio and directs the flow of all that is unfolding.
I stand over Chase’s body on the bed. The call went out and someone said the ambulance is en route. My throat was dry and I grabbed mints from my bag and put on some chapstick… like I was getting ready. I return to Chase’s side and stroked his head, my hand feeling shaky, my breath catching.
An arm was around me then and the voice of a school administrator was praying for me quietly, for Chase, for all that was to come, for peace.
The moments waiting for an ambulance are always some of the longest in life, aren’t they? It can’t have been more than a very few minutes on the clock, but in the back room of the health office, it felt like an age. I looked around. Do I have everything I need? Where is his backpack? I don’t want to take that to the hospital.
Dark blue shirts start to file in, monitors and first responder equipment in hand, the boosted red of the Stryker bed barely fitting into the narrow halls of the space. They’re here now.
I recognize a face in the first responders, and I call to him, relieved to see him. We work with him through a foundation and in the community. He will know this isn’t right. He knows what Chase looks like, sounds like… he knows this isn’t okay. I grab his arm and tell him I’m so glad he’s there. I think I gesture to Chase and say “You know… this isn’t him, right?” He tells me it will be okay.
I hear myself saying things about his health history to another first responder. Her hair is so pretty and red and it’s weird what the brain takes in at any given moment. I say random words about dysautonomia and I answer questions. Yes, he took his medicine this morning, but only the mediation he was supposed to take… no extras, no errors. Yes I give him the medicine. Yes he ate breakfast.
I think I lose track of the moments again. I hear the pin prick as they check his sugar.
I can’t see the bed anymore as they rightly crowd around and I start to say something about his heart. I always have to remember to tell people he’s not in treatment. A body in active chemo is a whole different response.
I look past the cluster around Chase’s prone body to see through the doorway that the outer room is crowded with first responders, but also with faces of our high school family… deans and teachers and people that I know watch out for Chase every day and a part of my brain registers that we are surrounded.
Chase finally wakes.
He knows who he is and where he is. After a moment, they transfer him to the Stryker and ask my permission to take him to the hospital. I saw yes even as I silently wonder if people ever say no.
I see Chase clock my face over the hands working on him and I make my eyes big and silly. “Do you recognize me?” If I’m teasing and calm, then maybe he won’t worry. One of the first responders reiterates my question: “Do you know who that is, Chase?”
“My mom,” he whispers, but does not smile.
A moment later, one of the nurses makes a joke about her favorite NFL team and again, Chase doesn’t respond. She and I share a look as we know that normal Chase would be laughing and joking with her about this – that he always teases her about this.
On the Stryker, Chase whispers that he doesn’t feel well.
Secured to the bed, we move out in a long line. I hand his backpack and school things to the dean who knows Darcy. I have a text that Darcy is waiting at the front of the school, knowing that things are unfolding, waiting to help.
The principal walks next to me down the hallway as we follow the cadre surrounding Chase. Students stop in the halls and make space, their faces curious and respectful. I’m thankful it’s during the period and we’re in one of the back hallways. “What do you need?” The principal asks.
How can we help you?” I’m so thankful for this school. I can’t think of the needs over than that I need to stay close to Chase. I think I tell him that I’ll think about it all later…that we’re fine for now.
I wonder if someone has texted Aidan yet? He’s in one of the back hallways in his French class, far from all of this, but he should know. I don’t want anyone else to tell him before we do.
At the cross in the hallways before the door to the outside, I see Bob. He is here and they let him in. A part my heart and head relaxes as it always does when I see him. I want to hug him, want to feel his arms around me, but I keep moving. I need to stay close to Chase too. Then, we are outside in the fresh air and they load Chase into the back of the ambulance, Bob standing near the bay doors, talking to Chase – a moment we would discover later that Chase has no memory of.
I stand and watch Chase get secured. I don’t want to leave his field of vision for as long as possible. Bob tells me that Darcy is moving the car and will bring things to the ER if I need them. I ask him to remember to pick Karsten up from school. It’s so weird how the normal and the dramatic mix with each breath.
I climb into the cab of the ambulance. I’m comfortable here. It’s not the first time. In the back, I can hear Chase’s voice as they make small talk with him while trying to start an IV. He’s talking about Darcy and how she will get his phone for him. He’s worried about that. I tell him it’s all taken care of and I’m just happy to hear his voice. They check on me and give me the plan and I take a deep breath.
I can hear the sirens as we go, see the lights flashing off of road signs as we pass. I ask the driver how often people try to outrun him instead of moving over to the side and he laughs a dry, sad sound.
In the hospital ambulance bay, I watch them remove Chase from the back of the rig. It’s quiet in here. He has oxygen on his nose and he wants to take it off because he’s dizzy. And as the bed wheels up the hallway and towards the emergency department, I hear him fussing that Lurie doesn’t have long and confusing hallways like these. I laugh because they absolutely do, but he’s used to those hallways.
At least he’s talking, I think to myself. At least he’s making sense.
I should text someone and ask them to bring me a snack and my water bottle, I think. I should have been better prepared.
And then we are in the hospital and the process of examination and answers truly begins.
Later, I would find out that the tech doing Chase’s nearly two hour MRI was himself the sibling of a boy with a brain tumor. He knew exactly what it looks like to be medically burned out like Chase and he knew just how to treat him and help him feel safe. And rather than a quiet and scared Chase, I heard his tiny voice in the machine talking about taking an art class at school. He would tell me later how the tech pretended to throw things just to make him laugh. And I sort of wanted to hug the man because he was a sibling who survived. People don’t always think about that… how hard the cancer is for the siblings.
I text Chase’s siblings. I’m here. He’s okay. Are you okay? I love you.
Later, I would find out that a woman on her hospital lunch break would hear over the scanner that a call was coming in for the high school… a sixteen year old male…a cancer survivor… and she would know in her heart that it was Chase and start praying. She heard the voice tell dispatch that mom was on scene and she knew to start praying for me too.
Later I would think through the things I was going to do on Thursday. The things that suddenly got moved to Wednesday, randomly and unexpectedly clearing my Thursday morning… a morning…a whole day I was not to have.
The ER nurse came in and introduced herself, saying she remembered Chase from the last time he was there. Chase said he didn’t remember her, but thought that maybe she’d been thinner the last time he saw her. At which point, I buried my face in my hands to the sound of her laughter.
Later, I would think through how wonderful it was that even in this local hospital Chase rarely frequents, he is known.
And later, I would hear how the ER doctor spent long minutes on the phone with Lurie talking about Chase’s history and next steps.
At just about eight hours from the time I got the call that Chase was sleeping and couldn’t be wakened up, we were finally cleared to go home and sleep in our own beds.
Last time this happened, over two years ago, we checked his heart. This time, they did the MRI right away and there was an area that lit up when the contrast dye hit it, and while I don’t think anybody is certain beyond all doubt at this time, it’s more than likely that one of the benign growths in Chase’s brain (cavernous malformations, or cavernomas) experienced a micro-hemorrhage of some sort. And his brain checked him out while it happened, explaining the unresponsive “sleep”.
Over the next several days, we have been and will continue to talk to his doctors to discuss test results and next steps. And I think the biggest question in our minds is how to protect Chase. This is still very much unfolding…
So, why write down all the details? Why ask you to hop on the ambulance with me, as it were?
Because, dear ones. I want to offer you pieces of the inside of this day so that when I say “God is good”, you can know that it isn’t what I think I should say. These words are not my attempt to put a positive spin on an utter dumpster fire. To me, these words are deep and abiding truth lived out and witnessed, because – even in the midst of a stressful and overwhelming situation – there were so many precious moments…grace moments: a breath for prayer. The comfort of the school family around us. The first responder who already knew Chase. The nurses and doctors who had Chase’s history ready to go… Do you see it? Even with tears and fears and wishing none of this were happening, we were surrounded by pieces of goodness and grace.
The circumstances were awful, but there was so much grace in the…
…moment by moment.
“But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.”
Lamentations 3:21-23
