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It’s like I’m on one of those stupid pirate ship rides at a cheap carnival, and I’m ready to get off. I can’t take this incessant back and forth, back and forth a minute longer. One second my daughter’s fine. She’s improving. Her fever’s down. The next minute some middle-aged chain-smoking nurse who’s nearly bursting out of her scrubs is telling me it’s time to think about the ventilator again.
I’m holding Natalie. The charge nurse, Miss Skinny, said if I keep her against my chest and focus on taking deep breaths myself, it can help. Don’t ask me how. The problem’s in my daughter’s lungs, not mine. This is New Age bunk if you ask me, but I’m not about to leave my daughter alone in that oversized crib. Not when she’s this sick.
Now that she’s against me, I can feel how hard her little body’s working. She’s so hot I’m in a sweat a minute after I start holding her. I can hear the rasping, wheezing sound in her lungs and can’t believe I ever teased anybody, especially someone as kind and sensitive as Eliot Jamison, for having a hard time breathing. I hate to admit I was ever that cruel and heartless. It’s fine if God wants to punish me, but can’t he find a way to do it without destroying my daughter? Or are we all the way back to David and Bathsheba again?
The doctor’s been in and out. Hot Pink and Skinny, too. And when they’re not in the room, they’re right across the hall at the nurses’ station where they can keep an eye on Natalie’s monitors and see us through the glass door. Nobody’s said the word ventilator again since my ominous conversation with Hot Pink. I try to tell myself that she’s just a floor worker. Out of everyone involved in this case, she’s the one with the least seniority.
Natalie can’t go back on the ventilator. Man, how much trauma can anyone expect one four-month-old baby to endure? It’s bad enough she’s got all these IVs and everything else. And now they want to shove a tube down her throat ... I can’t take it anymore. I know there’s no way I’m about to sit back and let my child die, but I literally can’t handle reliving what we went through in the NICU. I just can’t. Doesn’t God see that? What’s that whole thing about God doesn’t give us any more than we can handle? He can’t expect Natalie to have to endure another round on the ventilator. I’ve never even been on the machine and feel like I’m suffocating just thinking about it.
All God’s got to do is reach down and heal whatever infection she’s developed in her lungs. That’s all. He did it in Bible days all the time. What’s the big deal about a repeat performance now?
I think about Eliot Jamison, about his fiancée who loved kids. Loved him. He could be a dad by now. I can just picture how comfortable and happy he’d look with little miniature Smelly Ellies climbing on his lap and shoulders. God should have healed his girlfriend. Given them a perfect future together. Her teaching kindergarten, him bringing home the big bucks as a hot-shot doctor.
Why is life so unfair?
I hear Sandy’s voice in my head, so loving. So reassuring. Of course life’s not fair. But God is good. I can’t argue with her, especially since she’s currently just an echo in my mind. But if God is so good, why is my daughter bending her legs trying to force air out of her lungs? You’re not supposed to have to think about your breathing unless you’re a yoga addict or synchronized swimmer or someone like that. What baby should work this hard just to exhale?
I’m no medical expert, but I know my daughter can’t keep this up. She’s covered in sweat. Everything about her body screams exhaustion. She’s expending way too much energy, and her oxygen levels keep dropping. She’s in the low eighties now. I haven’t seen her above 82 in almost an hour. You can’t live like that forever.
We need a miracle.
The doctor’s back in. He’s frowning at me. Great. I know what’s about to come out of his mouth even before he opens it.
“We’re going to try to get this fever to break, but if things don’t improve, we’ve got to put her back on the ventilator.”