Saturday, May 22 - 9:45pm
Olivia hated the Pediatric ICU already. Where the oncology unit was quiet and calm, aiming to be as home-like and private for each family as possible, the PICU was awash with harsh light, loud beeping from all corners, and glass windows into every room so that you could see every wire, tube, machine, and person trapped inside like zoo animals.
Some patients were awake, watching TV while strapped to monitors and oxygen, but most were asleep or unconscious; Olivia couldn’t tell which. She had caught herself staring at a tiny toddler in just a diaper, arms and legs splayed in sleep, white sticker patches running to machines contrasting against the ebony of his skin.
“What?!” Betsy cried. It startled Olivia; it was the loudest she’d been since they had arrived. “Why do my parents have to leave?”
Nurse Heidi winced. She stepped closer to Betsy and laid a hand on her arm. “Have they told you what’s going to happen down here, Betsy? Did you all talk about intubation?”
Betsy nodded, her eyes soft with tears.
“Okay,” Heidi said. “What you’re going through is very, very hard. And people like me are having to ask you to be so brave. But we’re also having to ask your parents to be brave. And they’re doing a really great job, aren’t they?”
Slowly, Betsy nodded, and Heidi continued. “But some parents who are very brave lose their courage during intubation. They’ve never seen it before and don’t know how to react. And because we don’t know which parents will have a hard time being brave, we ask them to leave the room during that part. But when we’re done, we’ll let them right back in so they can be with you, okay? You won’t really know that they’re here, but I promise they will be. For everything after we get you set up. Does that all make sense?”
Betsy thought a moment. She looked over at her parents. “So, it’s like how we don’t do sleepovers? Because you don’t know who you can trust or not and it’s just easier to have a rule about it than have to make a decision for every single friend?”
Olivia laughed and sobbed all at once. My wise little Betsy, she thought, affection for her daughter surging through her veins. “Yeah, baby, it’s kind of like that.” She heard the laughter and tears mingle in her voice. “Except it’s the hospital acting like the parents instead of us.”
Betsy grew quiet again. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But they’ll come right back when it’s done?”
“They’ll come right back when it’s done.”
“And they won’t go until I’m asleep?”
“And they won’t go until you’re asleep.”
Betsy settled herself against the pillows. “Okay. Will you guys pray with me?”
“Of course, mija,” Nico said softly, running his fingers through her hair. Heidi stepped out as Nico prayed—but she didn’t go far; as soon as he said “amen,” she walked back in with a team of people behind her.
Polite introductions gave way to a flurry of activity: the anesthesiology team had their own portable pump, like the ones on the IV poles, and a cart full of tools. “One other thing,” Heidi said. “Your room is going to be extra busy because we also have to put in a central line, like an IV but thicker and it goes in your neck so that it gets medicine to your heart faster. But that just means we have more helpers, and more eyes to make sure we get everything exactly right.”
She leaned in close to Betsy. “You’re getting the rockstar treatment, kiddo.” Heidi winked and looked up at the oldest man from the gaggle of new people. “Dr. Stevens, it’s all yours.”
“Thank you, Heidi. Nate, clock it.”
A young man at a laptop read out the time as he typed furiously. He led a call and response as the team talked through the timing, procedure, who was in the room—like a court reporter getting in all the details.
Finally, Dr. Stevens looked at them and turned to Betsy. “All right, we’re ready. We have special medicine that will make you sleepy and comfortable. Then, we’ll put an oxygen mask on you for a few minutes to make sure you’ve got as much oxygen in your lungs as possible before we start. Best breaths you’ll ever have. While you’re asleep, you may dream, you may be sort of able to hear what’s going on in the room sometimes, you may feel nothing. People’s brains respond differently, but we will be watching your body’s response and taking care of you every moment, okay?”
Betsy nodded. Olivia felt numb, disconnected from her body, the room, anything.
“Parents, if there’s anything else you want to say, any last hugs and kisses, best get them in now,” the doctor continued and smiled down at Betsy. “You look like a sweet girl. It’s going to be hard for your parents to wait a whole day to hug and kiss you while you’ve got the tube in. But it’ll be worth it to get you all fixed up.”
Betsy gave the doctor a half smile, but she smiled bigger when he moved out of the way and Nico stepped forward. He hugged her long and drew in a deep breath at her hairline, the way they always did when the girls were babies. When they smelled new and stretched the edges of Olivia’s heart bigger than they stretched her body.
She sucked in a deep, silent breath and willed herself to focus on the moment, to be here and now. She bent down to Betsy, forehead to forehead. “Remember going to the beach?” Olivia whispered.
“Yeah,” Betsy said.
“Well, when they give you that medicine, I want you to think about the waves crashing against the shoreline and the sun high overhead. Everything peaceful and beautiful, just the way God intended it. And I want you to think of something else.”
Betsy looked at her, waiting, eyes wide. Olivia had been reading in Isaiah in spare moments on her phone—first, to be ready to listen back to yesterday’s sermon, but then because she needed the words she found there like Betsy needed this dialysis.
She licked her lips. “Isaiah 41:10 says, ‘fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.’” Olivia took a steadying breath and stared into her daughter’s eyes. “God is for you, sweet girl, in even this terribly hard thing. We love you, but He loves you more and will bring you through.”
She kissed Betsy’s forehead and held her face with both hands, drinking her in for one last moment. “We love you.”
“I love you, too, Mama,” Betsy said, smiling. “I love you, Papa.”
Nico grinned. “I love you, sweet girl. We’ll be right here, okay?”
Betsy nodded.
“Go ahead, Mitch,” the doctor said and asked Betsy to count backward from 100. She made it to 95 before she slowed down, repeating numbers. Her eyes flew open wide.
Nico gasped, and Olivia could see why: Betsy’s irises were shaking, like her eyeballs were vibrating.
“What’s happening to her?” he shouted.
“That’s just a reaction to the drugs working,” Nurse Heidi offered. “Don’t worry, she’s not really there. She doesn’t know that it’s happening, and it’ll stop shortly. Barb, can you walk them back to the visitor lounge? We’ll call you back when we have her intubated and the central line placed. It’ll probably be about an hour.”
Another set of scrubs led them back down the garishly-lit hallway, but Olivia wasn’t looking at the cage-like rooms this time. All she could hear was she’s not really there ringing through her brain.
She’s not really there.
She’s not really there.
Will she come back?
She felt Nico’s hand on her elbow, a steady pressure urging her forward. She stopped. Looked back at Betsy through the windowed wall one more time before they turned the corner. Betsy’s eyes had stopped shaking; now, they were closed, her body limp and unaware as doctors and nurses worked around her.
As they settled in the waiting room, she had to choke back tears at how wrong and broken it all felt.
She’s not really there.
Olivia looked over at Nico. He was staring at his hands. She wanted to talk to him. But they hadn’t spoken since she yelled at him in the bathroom.
She wanted to tell him about her fears, about how terrified she was. About how Betsy’s eyes had looked like pinballs stuck between the bumpers, just stuck in place, vibrating.
She's not really there wouldn’t get out of Olivia’s ears. She's not there and they're putting a tube down her throat and they won't even let her mother be there to make sure she's okay. How could she be apart from her little girl during such a harrowing ordeal?
The minutes stretched on, and Olivia felt her body slumping into the waiting room chair. The room was long, a kitchenette and vending machines on one end, the rest clusters of chairs , like ships on a sea of ugly carpet, arranged around half-walls and tables to give some semblance of privacy to the solemn people waiting to hear about their beloved babies.
But looking around, Olivia saw little need to care about privacy: hardly a soul spoke, all trapped in the worries and fears screaming in their heads, just like Olivia. Probably just like Nico.
She sighed and rubbed her eyes. She tried to not hear the clock on the wall tick, but she couldn’t un-hear it and couldn’t focus on anything else.
She just had to wait.
From the hallway, Olivia heard a baby crying—a throaty, angry cry, not a newborn whimper—as it rolled by the open doorway in one of those plastic bassinet carts they use in hospitals.
“Remember those days?” Nico said, his eyes on the hallway.
Olivia blinked. “They seem far away right now.”
“Yeah, but I feel just as tired as I did back then. And just as scared,” Nico said. He rubbed the back of his neck. “But there’s no sweetness in this. With babies, especially three on the first go, everything was scary and new, but it was exciting. You’re building a family. This is…this is—” he stopped, letting the words dissipate.
“I’m sorry,” Olivia murmured. “About the bathroom. I shouldn’t have yelled at you or told you not to feel your feelings. I just don’t want our girl to be scared.”
Nico met her gaze. He was so handsome. She knew it, always knew it, but it struck her in this moment just how many things she loved about this man. “I forgive you,” he said, his voice raw.
She reached for his hand. He hesitated, and she knew in that moment that his forgiveness was action not feeling. He had told her long ago, when they first started dating, about his grandfather’s thoughts on hard things, like forgiveness. “Abuelo would say, ‘Act first. Do the hard thing and pray that your feelings follow.’”
Still, he took her hand in his, and they lapsed back into silence. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.
A figure in blue scrubs appeared in the doorway. “Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez? Nurse Heidi sent me. You can come back now and see Betsy.”
Need to catch up?
Chapter 7: (coming soon)
I feel in my gut that deep wrenching anguish of a parent sitting unactive in the waiting room. Tears pooled with the memory 30 years ago when our baby was in NICU fighting for her life.