It Was a Good Day...
I was showing my mom Arianna's lab results on the board in her room.
A man we hadn't met yet walked in the room. Mom sat down in her chair. Gonz was sitting on our couch. He introduced himself.
Dr. Soandso from Neurosurgery.
My mom's face went white. She asked a question, her voice was shaking.
Me, being so casual said, "Mom, don't worry. Just because he's from neurosurgery doesn't mean that Arianna needs brain surgery or anything. What's going on?"
His response "Well, actually she does need brain surgery and we need your signature now."
I don't remember what happened after that. I remember our nurse kicking him out of the room and yelling at him.
I remember being brought into a conference room and being shown the CT scan from that morning. I remember throwing a box of Kleenex and it hitting some poor girl I hadn't seen before. I remember being told if we didn't sign these papers then our daughter wasn't going to make it. This surgery would give her a chance.
So we said a prayer and watched them take our baby away.
I was supposed to be a good day. The day before she was extubated. She was doing ok. Gonz had a lot of concerns about her not acting like her new self, but we were assured time and time again her numbers looked great. When the Dr. came in the next morning Gonz told him his concerns and the doctor (without even looking at Arianna) said they were going to do an emergency CT scan of the head just to be safe. We were assured it was more precautionary than anything (of course we had been there long enough to know there was a concern because they were doing it immediately, but the doctors were all so calm).
That was the beginning of the end. When Arianna got out of surgery and her heart rate rarely got above 60 beats per minute, we knew something wasn't right. No one could tell us what. They said she was doing ok...
Until the next day when they said they needed to bring her down for an MRI to ensure that everything was still ok. While she was down in the MRI they came to her room and told us that the next day we were going to do a care conference to discuss everything and make sure all the specialists were on the same page.
That day will forever be etched in my memory. The people who became like family to us over that short period of time couldn't look us in the eye. They all knew what was going to be said before we did. Grown men who we just met were tearing up telling us our baby girl wasn't going to make it after all. In fact, if we chose to keep her on life support, her brain would be completely fluid within 6 months. She would likely spend whatever time she had left in the hospital because she'd be too weak to come home. The drew us pictures and showed us scans.
All we kept asking is are you sure? How can you be sure? You're positive we will never have our baby back?
I don't know how these doctors do it. The give you so much hope, but at the same time they don't make promises. It is amazing. Everyone told us from the day we arrived to be cautiously optimistic. The neurologist that was on her case for the first week put it in football terms for us even. Everyday he came in and said it was still a close game. We didn't know who was going to win. Of course we were all rooting for Arianna.
I can't imagine the mental prep that went on overtime before they walk in a room.
There was this one doctor, she reminded me of Christina Yang. She was so intelligent, but not very personable at all. She wasn't the best at explaining things because she always used the crazy medical terms. She was the main doctor the Friday that Arianna was taken down for an emergency MRI because her pupils stopped responding and her soft spot got huge. It was the first time I saw that doctor smile. She walked in the room and told us the plan. She looked at the pictures of Arianna and told us a story about her daughter. I thought, wow. This is an interesting time to open up. They had us convinced that everything was going to be ok (in a good way, not in a fake let's raise their hopes for no reason). Now, I look back and feel like that day was the day Death took the lead. I believe that doctor was looking at all our happy pictures wondering how the heck we were going to make it through this.
I thank God everyday for the doctors and nurses that we met while up at Children's. They were so kind, so honest, so uplifting during our darkest days. I cried while we were up there, but I spent much more time smiling and talking about what a great baby Arianna is.
This was a rambling rant that was brought on by watching Grey's and seeing the doctors freak out but remain so strong in front of their patients. The end.
A man we hadn't met yet walked in the room. Mom sat down in her chair. Gonz was sitting on our couch. He introduced himself.
Dr. Soandso from Neurosurgery.
My mom's face went white. She asked a question, her voice was shaking.
Me, being so casual said, "Mom, don't worry. Just because he's from neurosurgery doesn't mean that Arianna needs brain surgery or anything. What's going on?"
His response "Well, actually she does need brain surgery and we need your signature now."
I don't remember what happened after that. I remember our nurse kicking him out of the room and yelling at him.
I remember being brought into a conference room and being shown the CT scan from that morning. I remember throwing a box of Kleenex and it hitting some poor girl I hadn't seen before. I remember being told if we didn't sign these papers then our daughter wasn't going to make it. This surgery would give her a chance.
So we said a prayer and watched them take our baby away.
I was supposed to be a good day. The day before she was extubated. She was doing ok. Gonz had a lot of concerns about her not acting like her new self, but we were assured time and time again her numbers looked great. When the Dr. came in the next morning Gonz told him his concerns and the doctor (without even looking at Arianna) said they were going to do an emergency CT scan of the head just to be safe. We were assured it was more precautionary than anything (of course we had been there long enough to know there was a concern because they were doing it immediately, but the doctors were all so calm).
That was the beginning of the end. When Arianna got out of surgery and her heart rate rarely got above 60 beats per minute, we knew something wasn't right. No one could tell us what. They said she was doing ok...
Until the next day when they said they needed to bring her down for an MRI to ensure that everything was still ok. While she was down in the MRI they came to her room and told us that the next day we were going to do a care conference to discuss everything and make sure all the specialists were on the same page.
That day will forever be etched in my memory. The people who became like family to us over that short period of time couldn't look us in the eye. They all knew what was going to be said before we did. Grown men who we just met were tearing up telling us our baby girl wasn't going to make it after all. In fact, if we chose to keep her on life support, her brain would be completely fluid within 6 months. She would likely spend whatever time she had left in the hospital because she'd be too weak to come home. The drew us pictures and showed us scans.
All we kept asking is are you sure? How can you be sure? You're positive we will never have our baby back?
I don't know how these doctors do it. The give you so much hope, but at the same time they don't make promises. It is amazing. Everyone told us from the day we arrived to be cautiously optimistic. The neurologist that was on her case for the first week put it in football terms for us even. Everyday he came in and said it was still a close game. We didn't know who was going to win. Of course we were all rooting for Arianna.
I can't imagine the mental prep that went on overtime before they walk in a room.
There was this one doctor, she reminded me of Christina Yang. She was so intelligent, but not very personable at all. She wasn't the best at explaining things because she always used the crazy medical terms. She was the main doctor the Friday that Arianna was taken down for an emergency MRI because her pupils stopped responding and her soft spot got huge. It was the first time I saw that doctor smile. She walked in the room and told us the plan. She looked at the pictures of Arianna and told us a story about her daughter. I thought, wow. This is an interesting time to open up. They had us convinced that everything was going to be ok (in a good way, not in a fake let's raise their hopes for no reason). Now, I look back and feel like that day was the day Death took the lead. I believe that doctor was looking at all our happy pictures wondering how the heck we were going to make it through this.
I thank God everyday for the doctors and nurses that we met while up at Children's. They were so kind, so honest, so uplifting during our darkest days. I cried while we were up there, but I spent much more time smiling and talking about what a great baby Arianna is.
This was a rambling rant that was brought on by watching Grey's and seeing the doctors freak out but remain so strong in front of their patients. The end.
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