Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Happy Birthday Trevi
My little Angel was born 4 years ago today. Had her party on Saturday, but the real party starts tonight when we all get to walk together, going door to door for treats.Four years ago, about 10 hours after she was born, I took some time away from my wife to go walk the other kids around the neighborhood so they wouldn't miss out on their candy. Of course I brought them all up into the maternity ward in costume to meet their new little sister first. What we didn't know then was that my wife, their mom, was near death. Something had gone wrong during labor that nearly killed her. After I took the other kids back home I returned to the hospital to see if her condition had improved. It was then that we really knew something was going on.
Doctor after doctor came in to investigate throughout the day, and each of them agreed with the previous one... let's wait until tomorrow to see if she's improved. Had it not been for one nurse, an Air Force Captain, my wife would have died that night. That one nurse stayed with my wife all day, fighting for opinion after opinion from countless doctors because she knew something wasn't right. When I returned from Trick-or-Treating that night I sat with my wife and watched this nurse through the window yelling at a doctor outside of the delivery room. She wouldn't give up on her.
Finally the staff surgeon was called in and did his own round of testing. He too was about to walk away until he decided to do a simple blood count check... something so simple every other supposedly educated buffoon who came into the room that day never did. When the doctor looked at the results his eyes grew big.... and things started to happen.
I don't remember much that night. I had been up for two days by then. What I do remember is a team of folks rushing in to quickly pump multiple pints of blood into my wife's body as another team prepped her for surgery. After they wheeled her off I sat in the maternity room with my newborn daughter, scared and exhausted. She was my first baby, and I didn't even know how to hold her properly let alone raise her and the other children by myself if my wife were to die that night.
A couple hours later a surgeon walked in and talked to me. I don't remember the conversation... only the look on his face. He was worried, but reassuring. He left to go continue saving my wife. The next morning... the next day, they watched my wife closely. She pulled through, but it took a lot of work to saver her. She would have died had it not been for the Captain who wouldn't give up until the right doctor was there to recognize what was going on.
Later in the day that Captain came in to see how my wife was doing. She had left the hospital before my wife was rushed in for surgery the previous night, so she wasn't aware of what had happened. When I told her what happened and what procedures they had to do in order to save her life, the Captain... this guardian angel, broke down in tears. She just kept apologizing over and over again for not doing more. I let her know that she saved my wife's life, and I thanked her for not giving up on us. She was still shocked and crying when she walked away, but I think she understood that no matter what happened, my wife was alive because of her.
Four years ago today my wife almost became one of the 1 in 10,000 women in the U.S. who die during child birth. Thankfully she's here to celebrate the birthday of our little pumpkin, Trevianna Isabella... my little Trevi.
We have two lives to celebrate on Halloween day.
posted by El Capitan at 9:28 AM
2 Comments:
said...
El Capitan, that is a very touching story and definitely gives special meaning to Halloween for your family.
I am glad that everything worked out - and that you were fortunate enough to have that "guardian angel" with your wife that night.
said...
Whew! That's some post! Thank God for that Captain!
Happy Birthday to Trevi!