He's In Your Hands Now, God

I'm trying to remember and document everything that has happened since Monday. There are big gaps in my posting due to the obvious circumstances, but I want to be sure I remember everything as best I can because Parker will want to know.

On Monday, April 13th, we went for the CT scan, but before we went I knew Parker wasn't as well as he had been last Friday. But we had to have the CT scan and they had waited so long because he hadn't been stable enough to move before, so we went.

The event was horrible. Parker screamed in the back of the ambulance, the pain was so intense. We had a nurse with us, Sherry, who was wonderful. She continued to administer pain meds and heart meds the whole time. By the time we got back I knew he had turned a corner and was headed in the wrong direction.

We waited for the results of the scan, waiting to find out what was going to happen. Parker was showing signs of shock ~ low BP, rapid heart rate, sweating so profusely he drenched 4 pillows and his mattress within an hour. He was cold to touch, light headed and dizzy. So much pain.

The nurse, Allison, called the doctor who had taken over for Dr. Turner (who was on vacation). Dr. Lam was the one who actually ordered the CT scan so the results had to come back to her, not to the surgeon, Dr. Garcia.

The rage I feel about what happened next, I have to keep reminding myself we will deal with it later. I don't want ANYTHING to invite negative energy into Parker's room, and once the rage-gate opens it will be hard for me to turn back. We left the CT place at 3PM. They told us Dr. Lam would have the results from the radiologist within 20 minutes, so we expected to have some kind of communication as soon as we got back.

By 6:pm, as Parker's condition continued to deteriorate, the nurse called for Dr. Lam, not sure why we hadn't heard anything. Even the surgeon had to wait for her. Dr. Lam had gone home for the day. She had not come to see us, she had not contacted the nurses, she had not contacted Dr. Garcia. She left. Okay the rage is building and I get to go see Parker in 40 minutes so I will stop talking about her now, except to say she will NEVER, EVER get near my son again.

Thank God Allison had the foresight to call another hospitalist who was covering for the absent Dr. Lam. I can't remember his name, but he came up, looked at the charts, looked at Parker, and called the surgeon AND the Critical Care Specialist and everything happened so fast. Parker was taken down to ICU.

The STUPIDEST nurse on the planet kept trying to interrupt getting him to ICU because he hadn't had his bath yet. HUH?????? Oh my God, I kept thinking, keep this stupid woman out of my way.

Parker looked at me and said, Mom get her away from me, I don't want her near me!

Some of the people we liked the most on the fourth floor helped get us down to ICU. Red and James among them. Once in ICU Parker's friend, Jamie. showed up. It was brave of her to come, she is squeamish and frightened seeing Parker the way he is. She hasn't seen him like he is now and I won't allow her.

They took Parker off for surgery. He was frightened and full of questions. What of this happens, what if that happens.... I love you, Parker.

If anything happens, you know how much I love you Mom, right?

Of course I do.

Okay, I just want to be sure. When is Dad coming?

He'll be here first thing in the morning. He'll see you as soon as you wake up.

Okay, be sure he and James know how much I love them.... just in case. Okay?

Of course, honey.

I squeezed his hand three times and he squeezed mine back four. And then he was gone.

Parker went off for surgery about 10:30PM. Jamie, another friend of Parker's named Nicole, and I waited in the ICU waiting room. I found their chatter to distract me just enough.

About 2:30AM Dr. Garcia came and said he was out of surgery and as far as the surgery went everything was fine. He did have to open him up rather than just doing it laproscopically, but he cleaned out the necrotic tissue, drained the cyst, got rid of the other two (I think he said he got rid of the other two but I will have to ask him that to be sure), and he said the pus in the main softball size cyst was really thick, filled with tissue, nasty, nasty infection. He was surprised it had gotten so bad so quickly.

The very nice anesthesiologist came out and said she did have to turn the anesthesia off for a few minutes when his blood pressure dropped off the face of the planet, so she said he may have some memory of the surgery. By the time the nurse came to get me, he was sleeping, I was exhausted and fell asleep in the chair in his room.

John boarded a plane at 8:am eastern time. It wasn't until about 8:am TX time that I found out what was happening. I went back to see him and the Critical Care Specialist, Dr. Morrison, told me with a grim face that Parker was declining. His organs were failing, they were starting him on dialysis, his heart wouldn't maintain itself, his lungs were failing .... Everything was going wrong.

There are a lot of pieces of that day that are a blur to me. I know I called James and told him he needed to come. NOW. Get a flight and come right away. I didn't tell him everything, just that he needed to come.

I called Parker's boss, Dustin, and could barely breathe through my tears when I told him what was happening.

I'm on my way, he said.

I sat by myself in the waiting room, sobbing, until Dustin came. Dustin sat with me most of the day, and thank God he isn't a "it will be okay" person. I might have punched him. It wasn't okay. Dustin knew that and just held my hand.

I prayed like I have never prayed before, and every time I stopped praying my mind would torture me by imagining what life would be like without my beautiful, precious boy ... it just isn't something you can imagine.

At some point I called Mom and Dad. Dad cried, and I worried what it was doing to his own heart. Dr. Garcia came and said he was so sorry, he had no idea he would get this bad.

John arrived about 11:30am. The news wasn't any better. Dr. Garcia came back and said he had to open Parker back up and drain the fluids that were building up in his abdomen, which were putting pressure on his organs, causing them to fail, was that okay with us.

Okay?? Of course You do whatever you need to do to help him live!

This is his best chance, Dr. Garcia said.

Go! Run! Save my child's life! Now!

Later he told us as soon as the pressure was relieved, Parker's blood pressure came up as he hoped it would, but once they had to sedate him again more fully, it dropped. The fact that it bounced up was good, but not good enough. He was so sorry. He told us the only thing Parker had going for him was his youth and the fact that he was healthy to start with.

I knew better, though. I knew the value of prayer and I knew God was here. I also knew it was up to Him. He had given the surgeons and the nurses and the critical care people and all of them the remarkable tools they needed to work on my son, to fix him, hopefully to make him well. But I also knew they had done, and were doing, everything they could, with every resource possible, to make him well. And on that day, with an even greater faith than I'd ever had before in my life, I knew I had to turn Parker's life over to God. It was up to Him.

My sister-in-law Liz sent me a prayer to St. Jude via email which she said she had worn out herself when Max was sick. I pulled it up on my computer screen and read it, out loud, all day.

Every time I would start to think about life without Parker, I would mentally slap myself and force my mind to envision other things. Every time I closed my eyes, laying on the little half couch in the waiting room, my body exhausted from the energy it takes to cry, I had visions of wrapping Parker in a soft, warm, white blanket and raising him up to the Light to heal. To be healed. To be comfortable. I prayed more in that one day than I have in my life. I prayed for serenity, for Parker not to be frightened or in pain, and I prayed for God's will to be done. And if He had a mind to it, could His will please be the same as mine?

I had a feeling that when Parker heard James's voice it would help. Call it a mother's instinct but I just knew. James didn't know bfore he got here just how sick Parker was. I couldn't tell him everything before he was trapped on a plane, before he could get here. Dustin picked him up and brought him right to us.

As soon as he got here, I told him what to expect. James had been resistant to coming down before because he couldn't stand the thought of seeing his brother in so much pain. He needed to be prepared for what he was about to see. I told him under no circumstances was he to let Parker hear the fear in his voice. Every single thing needed to be positive. Every word, every expression. He could fall apart when he left the room but not before.

I explained about Parker's body being open on the bed, his guts held in with a sponge. I told him about the tubes coming from both sides of his abdomen, the ventilator tube going down his throat and into his lungs, the nasal gastric tube up his nose into his stomach, the hundreds of leads and wires and IV's coming from every part of his body, the facial brace holding his cheeks tight so he couldn't bite down on the ventilator, all the machines and beeps and horn sounds that go on in a room where a person is being kept alive my machines and drugs alone.

James was a champion. He squeezed Parker's hand and leaned close to him. I'm here, Parker. I here now and I'm waiting for you to get well so we can go see some movies, so hurry and get well, okay?

He said this knowing, at that time, that the doctors didn't have a lot of hope. There had been one slight change for the positive by then, and for the life of me right now I can't remember what it was. It wasn't enough to make Dr. Morrison's face look any less grim, but it was something to hold onto over night.

The minute he was in the hallway James fell apart. But that's okay. He did was he needed to do when he was in Parker's room.

I slept a little bit that night. Knowing James was here, knowing Parker knew his brother and both his parents were here, gave me hope. I know Parker, and I know if anything is going to make a difference it would be that his family was here together for him.

The next morning, Wednesday, I was in his room at 6:am. His white cell count had been 44,000 but had dropped to 38,500! I certainly had never heard of a white count that high and nurse Sharon only looked worried when I asked her about it. But there had been a slight change in the right direction. Very slight. The fact that he was still alive was huge on it's own.

All day Wednesday I thought about Tuesday. It is a day I will never, ever in my life get over. I knew the value of the prayers coming from all over the country, and the incredible strength of his will, and the courage it was taking for him to fight this. He was a real champion on that day.

My body was sore from the emotion of the day before. My face swollen and red. I hadn't eaten since Sunday, Easter, when I had Taco Cabana for my Easter dinner, so I was weak from no nutrition, dehydrated from not being able to drink water.

But my beautiful precious son was still alive. What more could a Mom ask for?