The Never-Ending Pursuit of Teddy…..

It was a regular Sunday night, the Summer Olympics were on.  Women’s Gymnastics, their favorite.  I had just shelled out $350 bucks earlier in the day for fees and 10 weeks of gymnastics classes.  Alyssa in particular had become obsessed with gymnastics since we saw an ABC movie one night one TV.  She was gonna be a natural.

One month in, our new house was starting to feel more like home.   Before bedtime when Carly remembered Teddy was left downstairs in their basement playroom, Bryce announced, “I’ll go with her.”  They began their descent.  Alyssa flew out of my lap off the couch to follow and no sooner than she rounded the corner out of my sight, the sounds began.  The tumbling from the top of the stairs induced an immediate heart sinking feeling.  The nauseas pit in your stomach swallows your heart whole.

“God damn it!” Is the first thing out of my mouth as I bound off the couch, throwing the remote.   Even then I already know I shouldn’t be damning God at that exact moment.  I had a feeling I was going to need him. I knew immediately it was a bad fall by the long duration of sickening thuds and bangs and muted whimpers.  I think it’s Carly who has lost her balance, but then I see her and Bryce standing at the bottom.   Lyssa is lying at the bottom like a pile of laundry.

Everything from here on out happens simultaneously, all at once, like watching a movie.  Bryce is crying out to me in his panic voice, “Momma Lyssa fell!  Momma Lyssa fell!” as I’m crying out, “Don’t touch her!  Don’t touch her, I’m coming, back away!”

The mother in me is already multi-tasking because I know I need to remove them from the scene.  I expect blood to be everywhere, but as I reach her, she’s face down.   I’m aware I’m not supposed to move her, but I also know I need to see her face.

I pick her up to turn her flat on her back and she gives me one, wide-eyed, gaping mouth glance that is the image burned into my mind.  Like a fish out of water her mouth moves to breathe but no oxygen is circulating anywhere, her chest is still.  It’s the most horrifying gaze, the recognition in her eyes that she’s hurt, can’t breathe, the shock of the fall, it’s all there in a millisecond stare….  I think maybe the air has just been knocked out of her until she slumps backwards, body totally going limp as her eyes roll back in her head. 

I make my second irrational plea with God and think, “I don’t care if she never walks again, God please just let her breathe.”

“Call 911!” I order Kenny who magically appeared at the bottom of the stairs somehow.  We discover later in the night he has practically broken a toe getting down there so fast.

The seizure begins, her tiny body jerking softly as she curls to her side on the concrete.  She seems so fragile at that moment, her 32lbs frame infantile in her duress.  I usher the other two kids upstairs with my voice, as I block their view of her body.  Bryce keeps repeating over and over Alyssa fell, flipped over twice and then rolled and flipped over again.  I realize he witnessed the fall.  Carly is laughing.  A nervous, ill-placed giggle and I wonder if she’s gonna be like how I cry at totally inappropriate times.  Maybe she’s one of those people who laughs at funerals.  I push the disturbing, random thought out of my mind and continue calling Alyssa’s name as if my voice alone can bring her back from wherever she’s gone.

Kenny is yelling frantically, searching for the phone upstairs.  I know his cell is on the kitchen counter and there is a landline at my desk, but he’s frantically hunting down the cordless receiver.  I suddenly remember there’s one two feet away from me in the basement and grab it. 

My lifelong reoccurring nightmare doesn’t present itself.  For 15 years or so I’ve always had this series reoccurring dreams where under different scenarios I’m required to call 911 and when I pick up the phone to dial, I am riddled with panic and fear and fumble the numbers.  Then the phone won’t hang up or the line goes dead or I can’t dial the right digits and the panic rises as the need to call for help isn’t met.

In real life there is no room for panic, but plenty for fear.  I am the most scared I have ever been in my life, but it doesn’t paralyze me and I feel everything might just be alright when I hear, “911 what is your emergency?”

Kenny is back and I follow the directions of the really calm lady (What throws a 911 operator if it’s not a baby who isn’t breathing?)  Roll her to the side (she already is) don’t stick anything in her mouth, she won’t swallow her tongue.  She is whimpering now, the best, most pitiful whimper I’ve ever heard, even better than her 1^st cry that came too long after she was delivered. 

The seizer is over, lasting maybe 20-30 seconds in this dreamlike world I have been thrust into.  My mind still works.  I instruct Kenny to stay with her and not move her while I run upstairs.  Bryce & Carly sit on the couch in the living room and now he’s pleading for Alyssa to not go to the hospital.  He asks if her eyes are going to pop out of her head.  He has heard me say her eyes rolled back in her head and his 4 year old interpretation is her eyes are going to pop out.

The dispatcher releases me from the line and assures me the ambulance will be there soon.  I start dialing my parents, thankful they are just across the street.

“I don’t want Alyssa to go to the hospital!” Bryce pleads.  I usher them down the hallway into his room.

“Buddy, she’s hurt and they’re gonna help her there.  Remember when we talked about emergencies and how it’s important to listen to Mama?  An ambulance is gonna come and me & Alyssa get to ride real fast to the hospital.  I need you and CarCar to stay in here and watch TV until GaGa & PaPa get here.”  They listen.  I want to spare him anymore scary images, like the paramedics carrying his sister out on a stretcher.  My mind is already evaluating what’s coming next and what needs to be done.

I reach my parents on the phone as I grab the 1^st available garments off my bedroom floor.  I am in a gown and know I need clothes and shoes for the hospital run.  In record time I am dressed and back downstairs.  It is me who needs to be by her side.  I send Kenny off to wait outside to guide the ambulance to the right house.  I remember at one of my birthday parties as a kid my cousin flipped over a rail and fell headfirst onto the concrete at the bottom of those basement steps outside.  A crowd of family members ran down the street chasing the ambulance that apparently got lost.

Her eyes are not open, but I am assured by her shallow cries.  And thankful for the lack of blood, but I also know this can be a bad thing if she has head trauma and her brain is swelling with no place to go.  My parents arrive and are peeking over the steps with Bryce and Carly again and I shoo them away with orders to distract the other kids.  I send my Mom outside to get my purse from the car, I know I will need my wallet and maybe money for vending machines depending on how long we are stuck at the hospital.  I’ve had enough hospital adventures in my 4 short years as a parent than I cared to remember.

My Dad is coming down the steps and I stop him.  Panicked a little now because I don’t want anybody else to see her like this.  I am afraid she’s going to have another seizure or even worse stop breathing again, and that seems like my burden to bear, no one else’s.  I think another seizure is happening as her small body shakes, but then I realize she cold lying on the basement floor and I grab a blanket conveniently nearby and wrap it on top of her.

Finally EMS is there, it seemed like a short amount of time and I am grateful.  They take too long getting the neck brace on and securing her to the all boards.  I wince when he tapes her hair with reckless abandon around the board because I know how she will scream when I have to remove it.  But I assume they are not worried about ripping out little girl’s hair when they  are trying to save her life.

I follow them up and out, talking to her constantly and trying to reassure her I am still there even though we’ve lost contact.  I point out the moon when we walk outside, remind her how much she loves the moon, tell her we’re about to ride in an ambulance.  I look back at the house as I step off the porch and see the lights of the rig reflecting off Bryce’s face on his top bunk peeking out the window.  He doesn’t make eye contact with me, but I see his panic has kind of shifted to curiosity and admiration at all the commotion.  A police car suddenly pulls up as I notice Teddy fall from the blanket I carried  from the basement.  I give him the crazy mom instructions to take the Teddy back inside to the other twin, she doesn’t sleep without him.

Off we go into the night.

 

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