A Yuletide Tragedy

[Elspode]

You've all known a kid like this one. Unruly, disruptive, ADHD, loud. He's the five year old you see walk in the door with his mother and you wince. The boy whose name is almost always shouted out, closely followed by the words "stop it!". Sure, he's a handsome lad, with a winning smile and the cutest manner of childish intelligent speech you've ever seen, but still and all, you wish he were somewhere else most of the time.

I know that's often how I felt about Conner. The few times our family watched him for his mother, our good friend, he left us worn out and bedraggled. If we were fortunate, nothing would have been broken before he left. The boy is nothing if not energetic; he is anything but obedient. Before yesterday, the word quiet was never used to describe him.

Today, he lay silently in the PICU at Children's Mercy Hospital as I held the hand of his sobbing mother while the ICU nurse suctioned out his lungs with a tube shoved down his nasal passages. I watched him snake it down his throat, and heard the hollow sucking rasping sound coming out of Conner's mouth. Conner's small body twitched and jerked with disturbing frequency as it lay on the bed, surrounded by an array of life support equipment resembling the sick bay of the Enterprise. It was involuntary movement...the repeated insertions of the suction tube elicited no choking, no coughing...nothing. I held his cold, cold little foot, and tried to will him to consciousness, tried to reach into him with my mind, to tell him it was alright, that he shouldn't be scared, that people were with him, that his mama was going to be right there.

There was no Conner there. There was only a small, outwardly undamaged shell of a little boy who yesterday fell through the thin ice of a small pond, and was trapped beneath it for an unknown duration. That his body continues to function is only due to the heroic efforts of the man and his friend at whose house Connor had been left while his mother went to her second day at a new, badly needed job. Jerry and Badger beat their way through the ice with their fists, their knees, their feet, smashing away at it until they were able to dive in and pull his lifeless form from the pond. They administered CPR and mouth to mouth until the EMTs arrived and took him to the nearest trauma center. Then, they stood by while the police interviewed them and considered whether or not someone should be arrested for neglectful homicide.

Those men now suffer horrific, undeserved, self-imposed guilt, constantly questioning how they could have prevented it, what they could have done better, sooner. Jerry's own two year old was the one who alerted them that "Conner is under the water". The children had wandered off together from an outdoor gathering of friends, somehow escaping the confines of a six foot chain link fence that not even the family dog could circumvent. It was that same two year old who, upon seeing the men working to revive him, looked at his approaching, terrified mother and said, "Conner's dead..."

Indeed, a whole family, a whole community of which I am a part is now looking inward, and wondering why. When I left, the ICU waiting room at CMH was filled to overflowing with Pagan clergy, friends and family, all trying to support the mother and share the burden of impending loss that the doctors assure us has already occurred.

Sometime, probably in the next day or so, a mother in Kansas City is going to have to make some terrible, terrible choices, as doctors pronounce Conner brain dead and incapable of surviving without life support. That mother is my friend. I am kin in spirit with her because of my own son's time spent in that same hospital some thirteen years ago. I know what she is going through, and I know that I was favored with a miracle in that my own son, while handicapped, is still with us.

How I wish I could conjure that same miracle for Conner. How I wish I could tell him to go ahead and run, jump, scream...break something.

[richlevy]

Very sorry to hear about your loss.

[elSicomoro]

My thoughts and prayers are with the family, Ep.

[wolf]

Els, I am very sorry for the experiences of your friends, and of yourself.

Again, you have eloquently given voice to tragedy.

May there be healing in whatever course this little one's life takes.

There is no good way to approach this, but if the little one does not recover, I hope that his mother gives consideration to the choice of offering life to others in need.

[Clodfobble]

I'm so sorry, Els. I hope the two men who did their best to rescue him are able to move beyond their guilt someday.

[Beestie]

We had a child like that at our two kid's birthday party yesterday. I was so impressed at how patient his mother was and I could see how much she loved him. I remember thinking how unfair life is. And then I read your story this morning. I feel very badly for your friend - why some people have to suffer through things like this is something I will never understand.

[jinx]

I am so sorry Elspode, for you and your friends. You described in almost perfect detail, including the name, a schoolmate of Spencer's... I don't even want to think about it... its just so hard to keep some of those little buggers safe.
I'm wishing for your miracle too.

[Elspode]

Word has just come to me that a CAT scan has been performed, and the worst has been pretty much confirmed. My wife is on the way to the hospital to support the mother, as she is likely to be called upon to make the most terrible choice a parent can make. The mother stated yesterday that she wanted as many family, friends and community clergy as possible to be present when Conner passes.

I won't stop hoping for a miracle until Conner has left us, but right now, it looks as though his path is going in a direction where none of us can follow.

[Roosta]

So sorry to hear the bad news.

[xoxoxoBruce]

And the strength to endure things I cannot change.

[Elspode]

I arrived at the hospital at around 4:30 this afternoon. At about 4:45, the doctors called in the mother, my wife and another friend (as clergy), and the mother's housemate. They reported that CAT and MRI scans confirm no function in the midbrain. They have advised discontinuation of life support as soon as possible in order to make the child's passing as easy as possible.

Since it is likely that Connor will continue to breathe for some time after the ventilator is removed, this is not going to be like simply turning off a switch. "Unplugging" someone is not the clean, neat process that we all would wish for it to be. Instead, the patient's body systems take time to fail, and the process of physical death can take hours, even days.

The mother has asked for numerous family, community members and clergy to be present when Connor's support is discontinued. There will be nearly twenty people in the ICU, and a ritual will be conducted. There will probably be nearly twenty more in the waiting room, as a vigil begins to ensure that someone is with both Connor and his mother at the critical moment.

Such a woeful event. I can only say that we are truly blessed to have such a closely knit community.

[Elspode]

I keep forgetting to add (and I'm sure that at some point you people are going to think that I'm making all this up, but it is all too sadly true) that my wife's maternal Aunt Judy passed over on Saturday night, and so we will be driving down to South Central Missouri on Thursday morning for a funeral service, then turning around and driving back up to Belton (the town on the immediate Southern border of Grandview, where I live) for internment. I am to be a pallbearer.

While my wife talked from the waiting room to her mother, making our plans for the Thursday event, her mother informed her that her 90 year old paternal Aunt Cora was displaying severe symptoms of congestive heart failure, and might be on her last legs as well. She, too, lives down at the lake near the rest of my wife's core of family.

It is not beyond the realm of possibility that we will be attending, participating in or otherwise facilitating three funerals within a week's time, all during the holidays.

You can't make this stuff up, people. You'd be a sick fuck if you did.

[dar512]

I am not a superstitious man, but I have to say, Els, that I would never, ever stand next to you in a thunderstorm.

On the other hand, you are seriously due for some better days.

Peace be with you.

[Elspode]

I don't know that my lot is any worse than anyone else's. I just have to write about it to keep from going insane, and you Cellarites are the unfortunate audience for these outbursts.

I'm not really a depressing person. It is just that I have discovered that the only way to vent and assuage my internal grief is to externalize it in writing.

Just the same, I would keep my distance during inclement weather if I were you. :p

[LabRat]

Elspode, although I don't 'know' you, I feel like I do thru your absolutely eloquent and powerful posts. I want you to know that I often find myself thinking about you and your family when I am at home (cellar is at work) and hope for your continued strength in such unfortunate and trying times. While going through one of the worst trials of my life, talking about my feelings was probably what kept me out of the nuthouse. Feel free to post away, and know that many more are wishing you well than you may know of.