Melisa Yeager
Professor Ford
ENGL-100 E84
Memoir Assignment
The Day My World Stopped
The events of that day were happening too fast for me to comprehend. The day started great and there was no way for me to for see the horror I would face later that evening. It was June 28th, 2006, "my birthday". I had always looked forward to my birthday, I loved that it was the one day of the year where I felt entitled to be selfish. To be able to think of myself for a change instead of everyone else around me. To be able to have other people notice me and celebrate me. These were the things that made me love my birthday, until that day.
We had been house sitting for some friends while they were out of town. My sister had planned for her family and a friend of ours to come by that day to sing happy birthday and eat cake. My friend offered to babysit my two kids so that I could go on a date and celebrate with my husband. I was hesitant at first, I wasn't sure that I wanted to leave my kids. This was something I had always struggled with from the moment I gave birth to my daughter. When I held her for the first time, I felt this overwhelming love and knew that I would do anything for her. Becoming a parent for me had changed my perspective on life. I viewed things differently. My children always came first. Because of this I struggled with seeing that it was equally as important to spend alone time with my husband from time to time. To take the time to nourish my marriage. Knowing this combined with that it was my birthday I felt it was ok to go out that evening. So when we finished with the cake my friend packed up my two kids and they left.
My husband and I went to see the movie "Click" with Adam Sandler. It turned out to have a pretty heavy theme that I hadn't expected. It was about a man who couldn't appreciate the little moments in life and ends up fast forwarding through his life, then noticing that he had missed out on his whole life. At the end he is able to go back and have a completely different perspective towards his life. I hadn't anticipated crying in that movie but I did. We got in the car and we were thinking of what to do next. I was debating whether I wanted to eat dinner with just my husband and be able to enjoy a quiet dinner or go by and pick up the kids and eat as a family. My husband told me it was my choice since it was my birthday and he was up for either. Just then the phone rang. I looked down and saw their name, it was my friends that were babysitting. At that moment my heart dropped as it had many times before when we would leave them with someone. It would always be something silly that they wanted to know never anything serious. So I picked up the phone and all of a sudden I couldn't breath, it was my friends husband, he told me that we needed to meet his wife in the ER at Baystate. He told me that she took an ambulance with my 13 month old because he drank some paint thinner. I said ok and hung up. I then told my husband where to go. I was explaining to my husband what I was told and trying to process it at the same time. I asked my husband " what does this mean?" and he said " I don't know".
I felt sick to my stomach and almost dizzy as we arrived at the hospital. I didn't wait for my husband to come to a complete stop when I jumped out of the car and bolted through the ER doors. I was asking everyone for my son and no one seemed to know if he was there. They told me that maybe I had beat the ambulance there and I needed to calm down and just take a seat until they could figure things out. But I was in no condition to sit so I paced instead until the nurse came out and said they had found him. His name wasn't on the board yet because his parents hadn't arrived yet to fill out paperwork so they didn't know he was there. They took me and my husband to him. When we reached the door to the room the pain I felt was unbearable as I looked at my baby lying on the bed. My friend kept saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" over and over again but I couldn't even look at her at that moment. All I could do was focus on my baby and how his eyes were rolled in the back of his head and how he kept grunting. His abdomen was hard and he looked like he was in pain. It is the worst feeling in the world to stand there watching your child suffer and not be able to do a single thing to help.
The rest of that night was a complete nightmare. My brain could not keep up with what was happening. They originally told me that they were going to let it run it's course and hopefully it would be out of his system and I would probably take him home that night.They proceeded to tell me they were going to put a breathing tube in as a precaution since they anticipated him having breathing difficulties but as they went to insert the tube he ended up vomiting and aspirating, some of the fluid got into his lungs. Very soon after that he had a seizure. The doctors now told me that they were moving him up to NICU and that they were still hopeful that he would pull out and I would be able to take him home within weeks. After they got him situated they discovered that things were a lot worse than they expected and they now needed to get him to Boston's Children's Hospital where they had some kind of lung machine that would be able to help him. At this point it would be months of recovery at least and no way to tell what other damages could've been caused nor what kind of life he would have if he pulled through. I wish more than anything that the rest of this story would be me telling you how we overcame the odds, how quickly he recovered and how he is now a healthy 7 year old boy and that night was just a horrible obstacle in the past but I can't, that's not how the story ended.
They made arrangments for us to take an ambulance, since he was in such critical condition they weren't going to separate us. If he had gone by helicopter he would've gotten there faster but we wouldn't have been together. They decided that my husband would ride in the back since mother's tend to get too emotional and often interfere if things go wrong. For the first time in my life I let go of the control and I let my husband sit with baby while I sat helplessly in the front seat. Now I'm sure that it was just because of how horrible the night was but to me it felt like the ambulance driver was driving SO slow. It was the middle of the night and the Mass Pike felt like a ghost town. There were NO cars on the highway and somehow it still seemed like he was barely moving. All of a sudden he started pulling over on the side of the highway. It was right before the Worcester exit. The driver got out of the ambulance and I knew, I didn't want to believe it but I knew. He opened my door and said they wanted me in the back. I stepped out feeling like I was carrying a ton of bricks. Each step was excruciating. I tried to prepare myself for what I was about to see but nothing can prepare you for that moment when you see your child dead. They opened the doors and my husband was sobbing. I could barely get into the ambulance. That was the moment when my life stopped. Everyone in the whole world aside from me, my husband and my baby were still living life as if nothing had happened where as for me, my life as I knew it had ended. The moments that followed that felt like a blur. All I could do was hold my baby and cry.
The happy part to this story didn't happen right away and it has been an ongoing process. But thanks to my daughter and the strength my Heavenly Father gave me I was able to move forward from that horrible day where I lost a piece of myself. I will never be able to go back and be the same person I was before. That Melisa died the day my son died. The person I have become is one who works hard every day to be the best Mom I can be. At first I couldn't celebrate my birthday. I felt so guilty and blamed myself for being selfish and wanting to spend time with just my husband. I had convinced myself that if I had just chosen to not go out that night my son would still be with me. I have come a long way since then and now know that there wasn't anything wrong with me wanting to go out and spend a little bit of quiet time with my husband. I can now celebrate my birthday again without feeling guilty I just prefer to spend it with my whole family. Since then I have given birth to two beautiful boys and think of my son daily. It is something I have to live with and I think in a way I will always be grieving his death but this experience has shown me to enjoy life and appreciate the NOW. You never know how much time you will have with the people you love so don't waste it. Savour every moment.
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