Mar
19

Rome Burns; Mother Fiddles Gaily.

I had a hair appointment on Friday, scheduled weeks before. It was to be my first midday outing away from the NICU—I am at the hospital approximately eight hours at a time, and haven’t missed a day yet. Not because I am particularly stalwart, mind you: I seem to have some post traumatic stress from my trainwreck of a pregnancy, and staying focused on Simone keeps me from being dragged into a pit of overwhelm at all that has happened since January. The present is difficult enough to manage without piling on the tragedies of the past, don’t you agree? Perhaps this makes you think of a certain river in Egypt, but I like to think of it as knowing my limits. All the same, it seemed like it might be time to get out a little. March is one of my favorite months. It isn’t the most temperate, but after a Minnesota winter, a sunny 40-degree day with the birds singing and the snow making a rushing sound as it melts into the gutters makes me feel stupid with hope and relief.

Friday morning Simone had been on rated CPAP since the previous afternoon, at the maximum pressure settings. Her blood gases were not encouraging, and it was decided that if they did not improve, back on the ventilator she would go. The doctors stressed that this wasn’t the end of the world, which assurance I waved aside. End of the world? Please. This wasn’t on the penultimate stretch of the world. Setbacks like these don’t even feel like setbacks anymore, so great is my joy that nothing new has happened to send us skittering out of orbit. The first time they tried Simone on CPAP she lasted 30 minutes; this second attempt was such an improvement that I already considered it a roaring success. So I left for my appointment as planned.

At the salon, it was strange to sit in the lushly appointed waiting area and do nothing, with no monitors to monitor or alarms to alarm me. I sipped my tea and watched the fire in the fireplace, both exhausted and slightly exhilarated to be out in the world. I thought about Ames. I don’t think I had realized what distinct personalities babies have until I had Simone, and it makes me wonder what he would have been like. I slipped a little towards melancholy, and then my stylist collected me and led me to her chair.

Just over two hours later I walked back into Simone’s room, refreshed and sporting a head of shiny, coddled locks. She was being reintubated, I could tell because she was outside of her isolette, a nurse, nurse practitioner, and respiratory therapist clustered around her. They all looked up when I entered.

“You might want to step outside,” someone said. I ignored them; I had seen Simone intubated twice before; this was old hat. I remember putting my coat away and thinking it was too bad she hadn’t managed the CPAP. And then I began, slowly, to notice that something was wrong.

The nurse bagging my daughter was doing so with unusual rapidity, and the practitioner had a look on her face I couldn’t place. I realized it was fear, and then I saw Simone more clearly: pale, bluish, and floppy. My eyes shot to the monitor, and I heard my blood whooshing in my ears at the sight of her heartrate. It was 49. Where Simone’s breaths should have been was a flat scrolling line, and despite the frantic puffing of the manual bag, her oxygen saturation hovered in the 30s. It wasn’t going up.

“You should step outside,” someone said again. I felt a swell of panic. What the hell is going on here? I wanted to ask, but I couldn’t speak. The practitioner was explaining that the first intubation attempt had failed, but because they’d already given the paralytic drug, Simone’s chest wall was too rigid to bag effectively. Puff, puff, puff, went the bag. I wondered if I should run into the hall and start screaming for help. Simone’s pale lavender arm wobbled as they worked.

So this is how it will happen, I think. This is it, right now, the moment my baby dies. I think I am going to faint, but instead I start to cry. The nurse shakes her head grimly and asks whether she should call someone.
“I need to get that tube in,” says the practitioner, and she begins her second attempt at intubation. Simone’s head is pulled back, and I look from my silent baby to the monitor, where nothing has moved. A nurse puts pressure on Simone’s neck and then the tube is finally in and they connect the bag to that and puff some more.
“Her heartrate’s coming up,” says the nurse, as it jumps suddenly to 78 beats per minute.
In seconds it is all over, and I keep my voice calm, asking the practitioner sensible questions about oxygen deprivation and pretending not to notice the tears still slaloming down my cheeks. She assures me that there will be no damage: after all, the entire process took about ten minutes. It only seemed like forever.

Afterwards I stood next to the isolette and held Simone’s cold hand while she slept. Then I leaned against the sink, wanting nothing more than to pour a bracing finger of scotch and gulp it down, like they do in the movies after receiving an unpleasant telegram. Looking in the mirror, my new hair was like a slap in the face. Mom Reads Us Weekly as Child Fights for Life! Or maybe Foiled Again: Baby’s Death High Price to Pay for Subtle Highlights.

I remind myself frequently that everyone has to take a break sometime, and that my presence isn’t required to keep Simone safe. I will never have more qualified babysitters. Even Friday, the situation was not as dire as it appeared—they could always have given her a tracheotomy: hell, I’d had a pen in my purse. I know that all of this is true. And I know there is a lesson here other than never, ever get your hair done, but I think I’ll grow it out anyway.

By Alexa | Posted in Ceci N'est Pas Une Ecrivaine |