Trial by Fire

He tools across the floor, pushing a toy car along, making happy "bbbbbb" noises. Around the corner of the couch he looks up, catches my eye and grins; with my attention secured he holds the car up to his face, knocking it against his forehead, and then tosses it back over his shoulder, laughing as though this is the most hilarious thing since Jim Carrey.

Were it not for the three-inch strip of grubby surgical tape clinging to his belly, I could believe that the last five days have been no more than a nightmare, fading away into morning reality.

It begins on a black-and-white moment Tuesday evening when he turns, out of nowhere, from a happy 13-month-old into a screaming tangle of writhing limbs, squirming until I can't hold him and then crawling blindly on the ground, vainly trying to escape his own pain, sweat beading on his nose and pasting his hair to his temples. Wailing to be picked up and then pushing me away when I prove useless at relieving him. Vomiting uncontrollably and passing out into a drugged-like fitful stupor, to sleep for ten minutes and then repeat the process again and again, hour after hour.

In a freezing ER room I hold my retching infant over an emesis basin more times than I can count, hold him down for x-rays and sonograms, immobilize him while the nurses search for a suitable vein in his dehydrated little body and clasp his hands during a CT scan. Praying for an answer that doesn't come.

His room, at 3 a.m. From his window, I can look across the complex and see the huge picture window of the room where he was born. I try not to wonder if he will draw his last breath, here in this building a hundred feet away from where he'd taken his first. The crib in the room looks like an animal's cage; if these are his last hours, he isn't going to spend them there. I hold him all night. Untangling him from IV tubes and heart monitors when he wraps them around himself in his writhing. Wiping the bile from his face when he vomits for the fifteenth time. Rocking him, crooning, while my tears replace the ones he is too exhausted to cry. Wishing desperately to see him relax and smile one more time.

No rest for the weary. At 10:00 a.m. Wednesday morning, after a sleepless night with no improvement, I go home when his Daddy arrives. A call at two wakes me from a fitful doze. They are taking him to surgery. Right now.

Panic. None of the previous night's tests had shown anything warranting surgery. When did they make this decision?

The surgeon is in the room, takes the phone. His voice is calm, reassuring, quietly jovial, as though discussing the latest World Cup scores. They had seen measurable changes in the x-rays from last night to this morning. He isn't sure exactly what they will find when they open him up, but the need to do so is clear and immediate. His bowel is obstructed somehow, and time is of the essence. The procedure will take less than an hour; it will be over by the time I arrive.

I hang up the phone, numb and upset, but somehow no longer frightened. At last, there is a plan, an action. We will have an answer. Knowledge is power.

The next hour is methodical. I make phone calls. Pack bags. Arrange childcare for Peanut. Leave a note for the contractor scheduled to come out this afternoon. Drop off the mail. Concentrate on the things I can control. Control, that comforting illusion.

MRB is sleeping in the operating waiting room when I get there. He startles at my touch, and gets teary-eyed as he tells me the surgeon's report. Our baby will be fine. The diagnosis: Meckel's diverticulum, a congenital defect of the bowels affecting about 2% of the population. Out of those, only 2% are symptomatic - usually boys under 2. His had twisted around and cut off circulation to 2 feet of his intestine, blocking his digestion and causing his bowel to swell and inflame. They removed the diverticulum, saving his intestines. Four hours later, the surgeon had said, and the compromised intestine would have been beyond repair, possibly rupturing. They took his appendix out while they were at it, so we'd never have to worry about it.

We are there when he comes out of anesthesia, groggy, confused, miserable, with a tube in his nose, IV in his foot, monitors attached to what seems like every available skin surface. He voices his displeasure as loudly as his strength permits, his throat hoarse from the tube to his stomach. I take his hand as they wheel him back to his room, and hold him while they transfer all his machines and monitors.

The evening passes in a haze of morphine. Six hours after surgery, he wakes up enough to really look at me, calm for the first time since the beginning of the ordeal. He bats at the NG tube in his nose, twitches his head experimentally and murmurs a few babbling syllables. When I imitate them, he smiles.

He smiles. Faintly. Weakly. For the first time in 31 hours.

I hear angels sing.

It is a brief respite, but I cling to it through a difficult night and morning. He sleeps in a feverish stupor, waking in panic when his pain grows too intense, his heart rate skyrocketing. I pace with him, whispering hymns into his ear, until it stabilizes. He falls asleep with his hand on my face, to make sure I haven't left. Every time he doses, within a few minutes we are invaded by another nurse needing to check a vital, flush a line, administer a dose of antibiotics. Twelve hours after surgery, his diaper is still dry, and they catheterize him. I stand outside his room, my face against the cold wall, and his tears are mine.

Twenty-four hours, and his temperature continues to blaze. I am stressed, anxious, sure it means he's getting infected. He hasn't wet a diaper since the catheter, and they are talking about doing it again. Several teams of doctors convene at once in the room, just as the nurse is spreading out all the paraphernalia for more blood work. They debate, and I stand small at the edge, waiting.

His surgeon comes in, a big man, white-haired, with an aura of cheerful authority, the same I had heard on the phone the day before. He looks my baby over, pronounces him beautiful. "Look at his color. Look how strong he is. He's doing great. Psshhh, take out that NG tube; it's doing more harm than good." I want to kiss the man, hug him like he's Santa Claus. He makes me believe everything he says.

The nurse packs away her wicked needles, and they elect to give him a bolus of fluid instead of another catheter. Two of our pastors visit while he sleeps, and one of them reads Psalm 46. "There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God..." A few minutes later, my little boy finally pees on his own, and I want to giggle hysterically that this is the river whose stream makes my heart glad at the moment.

They remove his NG tube, and amazingly, it does help his overall demeanor. Within a few hours he is awake, playing with a drinking straw and getting angry that I will not let him nurse or grab at my dinner. He sleeps well that night, with no more heart rate spikes, and I sleep deeply for the first time in three days.

The next day he gets toradol instead of morphine, and spends more time awake. He's sitting up, playing with toys brought in from the playroom. They put him on clear fluids, and he downs four ounces of apple juice without taking a breath. It must be overkill, because when I offer him another cup, he glares at me from under his long lashes, and grabs at my shirt. That evening, they give me the go-ahead to nurse him, and he spends the night in bed with me, attached.

It is Saturday, now, not quite a full three days since the surgery. His fever breaks; he eats cheerios for breakfast and gets a pass to the playroom, where he crawls clumsily, hampered by his long hospital gown. I gaze around at the other children there: a six-year-old diabetic, just diagnosed; an eight-year-old boy whose wispy hair speaks of chemo treatments; a frail, thin child propped on pillows in a wagon, his IV pole trailing behind. Parents hover, doting and patient. I muse on the irony that with all the miracles modern medicine provides, it has to hurt so much in order to heal.

That afternoon, 72 hours after the surgery that saved his life, we walk out of the hospital, with my heart intact.

My gratitude is inexpressible.

God is our refuge and strength
An ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
And the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
Though its waters roar and foam
And the mountains quake with their surging...
...The Lord Almighty is with us
The God of Jacob is our fortress.