Is Ethan Going to Die?

Ethan is in the middle.  I lovet his picture because I am "holding" his hand.  I don't particularly like the picture of me.

This THURSDAY last year, Thursday, March 24, 2011 was a bit of a downward spiral.   I woke up to a phone call from Marcus.  Ethan's blood pressure had spiked so high they thought he was dying.  The doctors told Marcus that happens a lot right before people pass.  He called me to tell me to come and say my last goodbye.  This was the second phone call of the week where I was told to come and say my last goodbye.  I was tired of the drive to the hospital knowing what I was going to have to do.  It was heartbreaking.  I sometimes wonder, looking back, how the baby ever survived inside me while I felt like I was literally breaking in two.  I wondered how I stayed in one piece let alone a baby.  On the way, Marcus called and said a big blood clot had passed through the drain from the brain and that is what caused the spike.  However, it was a good idea to still get there as soon as possible.

Right before I left the house, Madilyn had looked at me with those big brown eyes and said, "Mommy, is Ethan going to die?"  I had to answer her truthfully, "It looks like he will."  I gathered both my kids into my arms and just hugged them.  Darn it, I did not want them to have this pain.  I could figure out how to deal with it, but why did they have to have it?  They loved their brother.  Why did they have to live without him?  As a five year old, I lost a baby sister and as  9 year old, Marcus lost a brother.  We had some idea what our children were going to have to go through, yet we didn't want them to have the pain we were so aware of as kids.  I stood there in the kitchen that morning and just thought this really couldn't be happening.

I haven't mentioned Parker and Madilyn much because they weren't at the hospital too much.  I had my family (Cara, Mellisa, Flora, Jessica, Cynthia) all taking care of the kids.  My kids were having an awesome week with cousins (besides the fact of their brother).  At first I didn't want them to see Ethan like he was in the hospital and had people telling me not to let them see him like that.  However, I started to realize it was probably going to be the last they saw of their brother and I WANTED them to see him.  Ethan looked beautiful just laying there.  He looked like he could get up and walk out-kind of like he was just sleeping.  My heart broke thinking I wouldn't be able to see this beautiful boy grow up with his brothers and sister.  I hated having these thoughts, but it was becoming clear to me where this seemed to be headed. 

We even had talked about both outcomes.  He was going to die or not be the same.  We knew where we'd bury him if he died.  We had family in Snowflake all buried together.  I remember my in-laws answering, "You can have a plot.  We have five.  It's first come, first served.  And, we only need two".  :)  We had both our parents offer to move with us to take care of him if he was "coming back".  Wow!  I couldn't believe these grandparents would sacrifice for us to help us take care of Ethan.  How comforting it was to know -just in case!

Thursday was the day Marcus actually left Ethan's bedside.  Ethan was having a series a tests done by the specialist and they were going to take about 4-5 hours.  Our parents convinced us to both go home and sleep.  My dad was going to stay with Ethan the whole time.  This was also a favorite of mine--watching my dad read to Ethan.  Ethan loved the book "Ook and Gluk".  I hated this book because it definitely didn't teach proper English.  But, he loved it.  My dad would just stand and read this to him.  I loved watching that and knowing how much all of our family loved him and loved us.  We did go home during these tests, and the rest of the day proved to be pretty uneventful.  The doctors set an appointment for 1:00 on Friday to go over the results of the tests.

I have awesome brothers.  They were constantly researching the brain to see how we could help Ethan WHEN he was in recovery.  They made a list of questions for the meeting the next day.  They had read books about success stories of those only have 3% of a brain stem.  They decided if Ethan had 1% use of his brain stem, we could re-program his brain through the 1%.  They had a plan.  They just needed answers from these tests. So, we all waited.

Again, I have to mention the amount of service that was given.  Wow!  All the good food :)  We never had to leave the hospital for food because it was brought to us there.  We didn't have to worry about one thing outside of our little Ethan.  He was our focus.  Thus, all the details I am missing of other people helping us--I was only focused on Ethan.  We also knew at this time, with all the prayers in his behalf, that if he was supposed to stay with us, he would.  We know God has a plan for each one of us.