Miracle

I avoid doctors offices. Something in me makes me react to the doctoring concept the way a person with an expensive car reacts to small town mechanic. The fear is if you allow them in, let them go to work, though they might have the best intentions, things are altered forever, never to be put exactly right again.

I ignored the fact that my son snored loudly until I awoke one night feeling something was wrong. It was the silence. No snoring, no breathing. Why I layed in bed straining my ears for any sound when there was none, I don't know. As the fear crawled up inside me a loud snore erupted from his room.

It was like that for a while before we ended up in the doctor's office. My son had big tonsils that needed to come out. This was not a hard sell even for me. The day was scheduled and it could not come quickly enough.

There was a secret fear in me, worse than if I was having the operation myself. My son was prepared, he knew everything that was going to happen. We were calm and positive. The surgeon assured us everything was very normal. Before the surgery my son looked me straight in the eye and said, "Dad what if they make a mistake, what if they do something wrong, you know, what if they slip or something and I don't wake up?" My fears were not so secret or unique as I may have thought.

The operation was smooth and he was out in a short time and on his way back to our home a few short blocks from the hospital. The next morning I went to work, my wife, my son and his older brother stayed at home with a supply of movies and ice cream.

A short time into the morning my older son walked into the kitchen with a look of concern on his face. Mom, he's having trouble breathing. Mom he's really having trouble breathing! "

I got a call. "We are on are way into the emergency room, meet us there".

When I got there they were talking about a breathing tube. My son was doing what he could to draw air through his swollen airway, but getting very little. He could not talk and his color was changing. The doctors looked really worried. One suggested a breathing tube, the other said they couldn't safely do that to a little boy in our hospital.

Next I knew we were briskly walking next to him as he was wheeled to a helicopter. They were saying there was no way we could get in the chopper with him. We would have to make the one hour drive to the city hospital without knowing what we would find when we got there.

Our house was less than a mile away from the hospital, we had to make arrangements for our other son to stay with a neighbor. We left before the chopper was off the ground.

As my wife threw some things in a duffel bag, I stood in our quiet neighborhood street explaining to a neighbor that our son was being airlifted and that we had to hurry to the hospital in the cities. At this point the chopper rose over the trees headed north. My own throat swelled shut and I could not speak as I knew it was my son being carried away.

At first, the only thing in my mind was our personal crisis. I wondered as I drove how many accidents are caused by distraught families chasing helicopters.

We found the children's hospital and the waiting room in the correct wing. We were told he was safe, but we had to wait.

As we waited we heard from a little girl's uncle who told us how her kidneys were shutting down because she had eaten poorly cooked hamburger at a family reunion. We listened to a mother reassuring family members she would be okay, her son was expected to pass away that night. She said it had been fourteen good years and now, soon he would finally rest. And there were others living their own dramas unknown to us.

Finally, we were allowed in to see our son. He was reclined slightly in bed with a TV remote in his hand watching a Disney video. He looked healthy and happy. The doctor there explained that in flight the anti inflammatory drugs they had given him at our hospital had finally kicked in and they really didn't need to do anything but watch him.

After all was figured out my wife went to a small room with a little bed to take her turn resting. I sat in a chair, in the room with the lights off next to my unsnoring, sleeping son. Through the curtain was the little girl with the failing kidneys and someplace not far away in his own room was the boy with AIDS his life seeping away.

I sat in the partially darkened room of beds and curtain dividers next to my sleeping boy, very much awake, listening and looking. Small lights on equipment flashed. Heart and breathing monitors beeped randomly, gently near me and throughout the room, around other patients. I wondered what causes things to happen and not happen and soaked up the moment. A nurse walked into our area to check on my son. She was in no particular hurry and asked how I was. I told her I was fine and thankful.

I asked if this was the way it usually was in here at night. "Yes on a quiet night", she said. I asked if she had ever heard the crickets and tree frogs at night in northern Minnesota. She answered by asking "Why?". Right away I felt foolish. "That's what this sounds like in here, the little beeps and chirps of the equipment from all around." She smiled and probably thought I was crazy. It didn't really matter, that is what I heard. It was part of my miracle. Salt to be tasted in tears, but no lasting wounds.

In the morning we had breakfast down the hall with the uncle of the little girl who was preparing for a longer stay and returned to fill out paper work and bring our son home. The mother of the boy told us he had passed away in the night. I felt guilty to have a healthy son. The family of the boy were clustered in a corner of the waiting room around a large box of doughnuts, barely touched, looking worn out, resigned. We left the room to get our son.

Heading back again towards the waiting room with my healthy son, I worried about walking past the family of the boy. I wondered what that must be like, having said goodbye, making peace and then seeing the lucky ones walk by without a care.

As we walked out through the waiting room to leave, my son's eyes landed shamelessly on the box of donuts. An older man from the family offered him whatever he wanted. My son smiled the way only a boy with a sugar doughnut can smile, ignorant of his status in the lottery of life. Several in the family returned warm smiles.

I hope I can remember this all of my life.

John T.