Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Uzziel (Part 2)

Continued from previous post; if you haven't read part one, scroll down.

As I walked into the PICU, it seemed like an entirely different place; babies were crying endlessly, faces were smile-less and sad, despite Christmas being 4 days away, and there was tension in the air. After garbing myself with a gown, gloves, and a mask, I stepped into Uzzie's room where it was completely silent. My mom, dad, and sister were sitting around his bed, and Uzzie was lying there using every single ounce of energy that he had just to inhale his next breath. I knew it was a stupid question to ask, but I looked at him and said,
"Hey buddy, how ya feelin'?"
And, as always, his reply was, "I'm ok."
Once again, the room grew silent except for the constant beep sounding from the heart monitor. I stepped out of the room to have a nurse explain to me what all of the #s and such were monitoring so I would at least have some sort of an idea of what I was staring at. She explained that the most important # at that time was in white, which told us the # of breaths Uzzie was taking per minute.
"An average person takes 10-15 breaths per minute and right now, Uzzie is taking 40," she explained. She told me that if his breathing got up to around 50 that they would suggest putting him on the respirator.
I asked, "How long would he have to stay on the respirator?"
She told me that probably 90% of their patients in Uzzie's situation do not come off of the respirator alive. So...I thought to myself, well, at least we have a 10% chance of walking out of this hospital together. After putting my mask back on, I re-entered the room, and the white # had gone up to 43. He still had a cough, and the nurse would come in every hour to give him a breathing treatment. He got to where it would choke him, and he would spit up....and before long, the clear spit began turning red. This was our first signal that his lungs were basically drowning in blood, and that's why he couldn't breathe. By 3:00 am, my dad and sister had gone home with the babies, and my mom and I stayed with Uzzie and his biological mom, Yvonne. Everyone was worn out and emotionally drained, but we couldn't shut our eyes for even one minute of rest. His breathing just kept getting heavier and heavier, and his body was completely shutting down. At around 6 am, he looked at me and said,
"Sarah, I need some help. I'm tired."
I knew that was the moment we had all been dreading, and we all had hoped this time wouldn't come for him, but it was here. And I had to get him help.
"You've put up a good fight Uzzie, and you have to keep going. I am going to tell the nurse you want the respirator to help you breathe. Do you want to stay conscious, or do you want them to let you sleep?"
"I need rest," he responded. "Put me to sleep."
And so I told the nurse; she called the doctor, and the doctor came in to explain everything to us. His mom doesn't understand much English so I was translating everything for her.
"Make sure she knows this is probably her last time to ever see him awake or to ever talk to him again," the doctor said.
When she heard this, she sat next to him on his bed, she wrapped herself around him, and sobbed. It was the saddest thing I had ever seen in my life. And do you know, he didn't shed one tear; he didn't mumble one complaint; he didn't even have a sad look on his face. He simply sat up in bed, put his legs over the edge, and pulled his mom's head down onto his shoulders.
"Mom, don't cry. I am going to be okay, and I love you."
That had to be one of the most encouraging and courageous acts of love I will ever see. His life was over; his mom was losing her boy...her whole life...her reason for being; he was fighting for every single breath of life, and yet HE was consoling his mother.

They ordered to leave the room around 8 am. We were told it would take approximately 45 minutes to an hour to get him on the respirator and sedate him. Well, 2 hours later, we still hadn't heard anything. So I sent my boyfriend (at that time), who was a police officer, to see what was causing the hold-up. Apparently, when they put the tube down into his lungs, blood came spewing out, and it was more than they had expected and so the tube wouldn't even go in. Finally, 2 hours later, we were given permission to go back into the room. I walked in to the worst memory of this whole experience--Uzzie was laying there with his eyes all gooped up (they put this vaseline-like stuff in his eyes since he was in an induced coma and couldn't blink), this huge machine above his head with a long tube going into his mouth, and there was tape around his mouth and up under his nose to hold the tube in place. It was all bloody; his sheets were bloody, his arms were bloody, the floor under his bed was bloody. And that's when I lost it. I burst out crying and didn't stop for a good hour.

I was angry. Why did HE have to go through this? Why did HE have to be sick? Why couldn't we just have a "normal" Christmas? And suddenly, I heard crying in the next room over, only to find out later that a single mother had lost her 9 month old baby. She had no family, and what she did have was taken from her. She had no hope left. Then I remembered,
"We still have a 10% chance."

Well the day went on, and I know it was the loooooongest day of my life. By the time evening came, I had to leave the room because I couldn't stand to watch him in such a lifeless state. When I got into the hallway, I heard some carolers coming by, and they asked me if they could sing to Uzzie. I gladly told them yes, and they sang several songs to him from the hallway. As I looked around the corner, I saw my mom and Uzzie's mom standing together with tears pouring down their faces. This was certainly not a typical "hustle-and-bustle-let's-go-last-minute-Christmas-shopping" week for us. And as the carolers stopped singing, 2 young men asked me if they could go see Uzzie, so I gave them both masks and walked in with them. They asked permission to pray for him, laid hands on him, and immediately started praying. At that moment, I knew that I immediately had to get prayer going for him. So I asked those guys to put him on their prayer list at whatever church they went to; I called my own pastor and asked him to get our prayer chain started; I got online from the kiddie korner in the hospital, and I told all of my chat buddies to pray...I had friends praying for him everywhere and calling churches to have him put on prayer lists: Washington, Arizona, Texas, Colorado, Arkansas, Virginia, New York, even England! And even the people who weren't "believers" said, "We'll keep Uzzie in our thoughts and prayers."

Monday morning, December 23rd, the doctor asked to speak with Yvonne and me. He took us back to this little private room and said,
"Uzzie's kidneys are starting to shut down. We need to start dialysis to get his kidneys working again, but if we do that, it's going to overwork his heart, and he will have a heart attack. I do not suggest that you start dialysis, but it's up to you. If you choose NOT to, he will live about 2 more hours. And I want you to sign the Do Not Resuscitate form because if he flatlines, and we have to shock him to bring him back, blood is going to gush out of every single hole in his body; his eyes, his ears, his nose, etc...So think about this and let me know what you want us to do."
After telling Yvonne everything in Spanish, she looked at the doctor and very plainly said in English,
"No. I want you to do everything possible to help my son stay alive."
And so he said, "Okay, we will start dialysis in the morning if he makes it thru the night. For now, here is a funeral home with cheap expenses that you might want to call and make arrangements."
After going back and telling my parents about this, we were all very upset, as we didn't want his mom to have them resuscitate Uzzie if he happened to flatline. The nurse had just turned up the knob on the respirator to its maximum level; it was now breathing for Uzzie 100%. But, everything was out of our hands. We were all standing there looking at him lying in this bed, his eyes had finally closed, and there wasn't one single thing we could do about it. Our only job left to do was to pray, pray, and pray some more. And that's exactly what we did. I got back on the phone and called everyone I knew and told them to call people to pray, and have them call people they knew to pray, and so on...
On Tuesday morning, the nurse came in and told me a lady was there to see Uzzie and wanted to know if I would give her permission to enter the room. (At this time, all visitors could only visit with family members in the waiting room; nobody could come see Uzzie.) I told the lady I appreciated her coming, but we couldn't allow any visitors inside.
She said, "Ma'am, please. I want to pray for him. I heard about him on the radio, and I don't know him, but I wanted to come pray for him."
I couldn't believe it; I told her to go put all the garb on, and she could go inside the room...and she did. She prayed, and when she left, someone else came in. And when that person left, someone else came in. All these people had heard about him and simply wanted to pray for him. How could I possibly turn down the handiwork of God, when He was simply being faithful to me and answering my prayers? And so all day Tuesday, visitors streamed in and out of the room. It was a Christmas Eve I will never forget. And amazingly enough, Uzzie didn't get any worse. He stayed the same, and by 10 pm, his kidneys had started to function again on their own. There was no more need for dialysis!

Christmas morning was here, and we were still praying for a miracle. I was soooo tired from not sleeping for 4 days, and I have no clue how I was possibly still standing. People had brought food and gifts to us, and it was a nice day, but we certainly would have rather been at home. Anyway, we decided to let everyone have a break and go home to get away from the white walls and the hospital smell. I told my parents and Yvonne to go first so they could all get refreshed, and then I would go home later. While they were gone, it was just me and Uzzie. And so I pulled a chair up next to his bed. I held his hand, and I started singing
Jesus loves me this I know
For the Bible tells me so
Little ones to Him belong
They are weak but He is strong...
I was looking toward his feet, and I saw his toes twitch. Finding that a little odd, I turned my head to look at his face, and his eyes were open! It scared me to death, and I threw his hand down and ran out of the room. I went to the nurse's station and said,
"Hey! Are his eyes suppose to be open?"
"No," she said, "he is in an induced coma, hun."
"Well he's not anymore. He's awake!"
Looking at me with disbelief, she followed me back into the room, and sure enough, he was blinking. She told me to hold his hand, and so I did.
"Uzzie, if you can hear me, squeeze Sarah's hand."
And he squeezed it--hard.
I was so excited, I couldn't stand it. I called everyone to tell them the good news. He wasn't anywhere near being up and walking, but he certainly was full of life, contrary to what the doctors had predicted 2 days beforehand.
As the doctor entered the room with the nurse, he shook his head and said, "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this, and I have no explaination for it."
Maybe he didn't have an explaination, but I did. It was the power of prayer. God had answered our prayers, and He gave us the best Christmas gift we could ever ask for: a miracle.

All of this happened on Wednesday, and by the following Monday, Uzzie was taken off of the respirator, and he was eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches lol. We got to move out of ICU on Wednesday; we celebrated New Year's in Pediatrics, and by January 3rd, we were all walking out of the hospital together.

I couldn't wait long after getting home to start asking Uzzie questions.
"Do you remember hearing or seeing anything while you were sleeping?"
And he answered,
"It's really weird. I remember hearing singing, it was like angels or something. And I remember seeing like all these doctors around me, but they were all dressed in really really bright white. And I felt safe. I felt like everything was perfect, and I wasn't scared or afraid. I felt really peaceful."
Now we know that the singing he heard was probably the carolers....or angels...and the doctors dressed in really bright white were probably....who knows lol...but one thing we do know is that there is a God who loves us, and prayer is the key of our morning and the lock of our night. :)

~Happy 16th Birthday, Uzziel. I love you!!

Uzziel

Ok, I'm going for a record; this will be my longest posting. Well you had to know it was coming sooner or later...it's time for me to brag a little on muh little bro.

His name is Uzziel, but nobody can pronounce that correctly, so we call him Uzzie (Ooo-zee) lol
He is sixteen today. He loves going to movies, playing video games, and spending time with family.

As most of you know, Uzzie isn't a typical sixteen year old guy. Sure, he likes to go cruisin' around for girls, he likes to crack jokes at all of us around the house and all that good stuff, but Uzziel is fighting a battle with Leukemia. And I don't use the term "fighting" loosely--he's a strong, strong kid.

6 years ago, Uzzie was first diagnosed with cancer in his blood cells. He put up a good first fight, taking all of his meds, going thru his chemo therapy and getting numerous blood transfusions and weekly spinal taps. Two years later, he was told that his body had gone into remission and he was no longer carrying the disease. But, almost a year ago, October 15, 2003, I took him in for a check-up appointment, and we were highly distraught as the doctor said, "It looks like your leukemia is back, and you're in for another fight. This time it's going to be twice as hard to win because your body is already immune to all the medications from Round 1." I remember trying my very hardest to hold back my tears, as I didn't want him to see me upset.
"Am I gonna lose all my hair again?"
"Yes, Uzzie."
"Am I gonna have to be in the hospital every week again?"
"Yes, Uzzie, and this time you will be staying in longer increments because the treatments wilbe twice as strong."
"Will it go away like it did the last time?"
"Anything is possible, Uzzie, but you will have to go thru treatments for at LEAST 2 years, and that's IF your body allows you to live that long."
Very matter-of-factly, he looked up at me and said, "I can do this."

At that very moment, my entire life changed; my priorities were rearranged, my outlook on life was reconstructed, my concern for myself was lowered and my desire to help my family was greatly increased. I had never been so much at a loss for words as I was that day. But, life went on just as it always does.

Well, on December 13th, Uzzie came home after a 2-week stay in the hospital for treatments. But, on December 15th, we took him right back in because he was running a fever of 103.7
On Tuesday, the 17th, Uzzie called and asked me if I would spend the night with him at the hospital. Now this is a kid who never, ever asks for anything. Whenever he had to stay at the hospital, he would always say, "I'll be ok. You go home and get some good rest for both of us." He never complained about anything. And so for him to ask me to come stay with him struck me as a little odd. I sort of sensed something was wrong.
When I got there, he was watching music videos. His fever had gone up to 105. He had a persistent cough that didn't sound right. I kept asking him, "How do you feel?" And would say, "I'm good." Well we finally laid down for bed around 11, and he had the nurse bring a bed in for me. He made my bed, put the sheets on, and then put this bed warming thing on there for me to lay on; I didn't even know what it was lol; he was so cute trying to make sure I was going to be as comfortable as possible. Throughout the night, the nurse would come in every hour to take his temp and BP, and I would always wake up to ask her for the #'s...one time his fever would be down and the next it would be back up again. It just kept fluctuating. Anyway, it was a long night for both of us...and I don't think he quit coughing the whole night.
So I stayed close by the entire week. As soon as I got off work on Friday, the 20th, I headed to see him. When I walked in, he had an oxygen mask on, his fever was still 105, for the 5th day in a row. I immediately gave him a cold rag to keep on his head; I would re-wet it every 4 minutes so it would stay cold. Just standing next to him, I could feel the heat that was finding its way out of his body. That night, his biological mom stayed with him, and we kept the babies with us (Allister 2 and Destiny 8 months).
Saturday morning came, and the phone rang. I knew it was his mom. In her best English possible, she cried, "Sarah, please come here with your mom." And so we left the kids with my aunt, and Mom, Dad, Steph, and me headed to the hospital. By the time we got there, his mom was in the ER, as she was having a nervous breakdown. I stayed there with her and everyone else went to check on Uzzie. By this time, he had been moved to the Pediatric ICU.
His mom was crying, and I asked her what was upsetting her. "Sarah, I am so sad. Dr. Rosen came in this morning and told me Uzzie is going to die in 2 days."

*To be continued tomorrow

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Remembering the Falcons

Hola, everyone. I hope this blog finds you healthy and in good spirits.

I'm actually kinda sad, as yesterday was my very last day to see my mental health kiddos. You know, they are soooooooooo defiant and annoying thru the entire summer, that some days I would just like to grab em around their little necks and...ya know, squeeze as hard as I can...but at that very last breaking moment, something just comes over me and takes those frustrations away...and then, I start feeling guilty for ever having those thoughts of wanting to choke that little boy who just tried to put a fork thru my cheek or that little girl who wrote on the chalkboard, "Sarah is an a**hole!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And she's going to burn in hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!" lol (yes, those are serious examples.) It's amazing how one look in their eyes allows you to realize that they never chose to have their idiotic parents; they didn't ask to be sexually and physically abused; they didn't ask their mom to drink while she was pregnant; they didn't ask their dad to commit suicide...and they didn't ask for the cards that life has dealt them at such a young age. Call me a sucker, but my heart goes out to these kids, and after spending 12 hours a day with them for 3 months, you get pretty well attached to them. It was really hard to say goodbye yesterday.


We decided to make it as fun as possible. We had a closing ceremony where we gave each child an award of some type, most athletic (the kid who ran away the fastest from the cops) , most talkative (the girl who loved to curse at all the staff), most inquisitive (the boy who continuously asked questions like "Sarah, why can't I pee in my pants?") and so on...you get the point. Anyhow, they loved it...they were all smiling, and we only had one kid in our class who got mad and broke the centerpiece vase in the middle of the table...quite an accomplishment, let me tell ya! So after we gave out awards to the kids, we let our kids give awards to each staff member. While I was expecting to get an award for "Miss A**hole" or "Meanest Staff Member", I was certainly surprised when they called out my name, followed by "Funniest Person in the World!!!!" And allll the kids just laughed their little hearts out..it was so cute, and I was sooo relieved. The funny thing is...I can't remember a single time when I was funny or made them laugh, so I'm beginning to wonder if it wasn't an insult after all lol

So that was my highlight of the week, even though I was sad to see them all go...

and now..summer is coming to an end...which means I have some big decisions to be making...grad school or no grad school? work or no work? New car or new savings account for spoling my future niece/nephew? California or Virginia? Any advice is greatly appreciated! ;)

~Dedicated to my Summer of Soaring with the "FALCONS"