My Greatest Come Back

This is a repost from my Helium.com account, I wrote it about a year ago and yes it is a true story. My son now is 12 years old, a honor student, runs track (yes he is as good as I was at that age), plays football and an all around well young man.

A few days ago after my post about the March of Dimes one of my friends from college who I have recently reconnected with and I were talking about the article; I told her about this incident and promised to post the story. So Roz here you go.....

As always I enjoy reader response and discussion.


What started out as a normal Saturday filled with household chores and basketball ended with my two and half year old dying. I was awaken earlier in the morning by my two and half year old son tickling my nose, "Mama I want breakfast" he begged. "Okay, give mama a chance to wake up" I requested as I slowly removed the covers and headed to the bathroom to wash up. Breakfast was soon made and I began my weekend chores, washed my hair, and prepared for my eleven year olds afternoon basketball game.

The basketball game was uneventful, my son scored 18 points leading his team to victory as my youngest son, my mother, my husband, and I cheered from the stands. To celebrate we stopped at a local pizza shop, ordered cheese steaks and hot wings and headed home to celebrate the teams win. It was a chilly Saturday in late January so my husband started a fire while we played Uno with the children and munched on wings. Shortly, thereafter my two and half year old began to whine and cry, thinking he must be sleepy since he missed his afternoon nap, I changed his pull-up and laid him down for a nap.

Shortly thereafter I crept down the hall for a quick peek on my sleeping son, it was then that I first noticed that something was wrong, he was whimpering and did not seem to be asleep, I called to my husband as I scooped up my son. There was not a temperature, and he did not appear to be in pain, he just did not seem to be able to get comfortable enough to go to sleep. My husband volunteered to lay with my son, placing him on his chest and singing soft lullabies, but that did not work, thus I was quickly on the phone to the Pediatrician's office. Just my luck the person on call was the Nurse Practitioner who recommended that I try a bottle of Jamaican water to help because it sounded like gas to her. Lucky I knew what the signs of gas were and did not listen to her advice instead we dressed quickly and headed to the nearest hospital.
As you would know good fortune was not on my side, the van was almost empty, and we needed gas to travel to the hospital, we headed to the nearest gas station. My husband pumped gas while I went in the store to pay the store was about two hundred feet from the gas pumps. While waiting in line I heard my son who was in his car seat scream "Mommy, help me" I left my checkbook and driver's license with the clerk promising to return when I could to conclude the purchase I ran to the car and off to the hospital we sped.

Upon arriving at the hospital, we were seen rather quickly to our surprise. The nurse who assessed my son quickly called over to another head triage nurse and requested assistance they found my son to be in bradycardia distress and rushed us in the emergency room. Hours passes with all sort of tests being conducted and still no answer. During this time, we reached out to family for support.

As I sat in the room with my son holding him and praying he open his eyes from the coma that he had been in for the last few hours pointing to the wall, "look at the lady with the pretty white dress" he exclaimed. Perplexed, I looked around and responded "where sweetie" and watched as he pointed to the ceiling. "I don't see anything," I told him. "Look at the water on the wall" he shouted, both my mother and I turned and saw nothing. Suddenly, the heart monitor started beeping; my son had gone limp in my arms as doctors and nurses rushed into the room grabbing him from my arms.

Finally, after several very long minutes, the heart monitor returned to its normal slow steady beep and we were informed that they were sending my son to ICU, they did not know what was wrong with him, and it would be best if we called our religious leader to join us. We spent the next forty-eight hours in prayer watching our son as he went in and out of a coma.

Without an explanation, my son awoke Monday morning demanding breakfast, "I want eggs and grits," he screamed as he banged on his crib. The nurse rushed to check on us and then left the room to call for the doctor. We spent several hours waiting on new test results and were finally released to go home.

My son suffered no ill effects from his experience and is now a handsome, athletic, straight "A" eleven year old. I would say this has been our family's greatest comeback.

Just the way I see it.
Until next time,

Nay-Nay