Flashback

I don’t know why I have been having flashbacks of that day in March. That day that I held my son’s head in my hands while white foam covered his lips, his chest rattling that sound of eminent death, and then nothing. The breathing stopped. I could only whisper or maybe it was a yell, a feral cry of grief and bewilderment, “We’ve lost him”

I had imagined losing this son, this middle child, this boy of excess, not on the floor of my cluttered computer room, not writhing amongst the papers with a grand mal seizure, not with my sister, the provider trying frantically to dial 911 on our new phones, not with four dogs blocking the door from the EMTs, not when my mother lay dying in the hospital.

We had just returned from visiting my mother. It was a Sunday. She was having a good day and the three of us had walked home together. We were there just a few minutes when my sister came and got me “There is something wrong with Paul”

He was sitting by the desk staring. I thought he was just overwhelmed with everything. He had lost his job, his friend and coworker had died two days before and he knew that his grandma was not going to get better. I put my arm around him to comfort him when he turned his head like Linda Blair in the Exorcist . He was yelping and flopping. He flipped over in the desk chair. He was now wedged among my ridiculous amount of furniture slamming his head on the floor and bookcase. I yelled for my sister to call 911. She could not get the phone to work. I could not tell her how. She dialed from her California cell phone. They asked questions she could not answer and asked if he had epilepsy. I yelled no, but I do. They said they did not care about that. Somewhere in my tangled brain it seemed important for them to know that he could have epilepsy, and not a drug overdose, or withdrawal from alcohol.
I asked or screamed at him “Did you take something?”
Of course, he was not conscious, but he was thrashing so much. He is six foot four inches tall and all I could think was to protect his head so I cradled it in my lap as his body continued to dance electric. When the emergency team came, they would not enter the house with four dogs barking at them. We had my son’s and other sister’s dogs as well as our own two. Everyone was visiting my mom. Melissa could not get them to go out. I refused to let go of Paul’s head. One brave EMT came in and took over so I could get the dogs out and the rest of the medics could come in. When I returned he asked me why I hadn’t told them he had broken his leg. I said I didn’t know. Paul finally stopped seizing, but he was incoherent and swearing. They cut his pants. He was going in and out of consciousness. The ambulance was at our house a long time. I called my husband who was with our other two children. I was standing outdoors watching the ambulance when they came.
He was alive, with a leg broken in two places from a violent seizure that lasted over fifteen minutes. He was alive when the hospital called that he had been in a horrific crash that had lacerated his liver. He was alive after he crashed his car into a tree and it burst into flames. My dear, sweet boy who rides the ghosts of death, not willing to accept he is still alive.