It was supposed to be an ordinary day, but a feeling something was going to go horribly wrong kept me awake the night before. I waited six months, because the first time they mentioned the routine procedure and the risks I knew my daughter was going to end up dead, or brain damaged.
I thought I'd waited long enough. After six months I believed things would be ok.
I told myself to relax and stop being paranoid.
I shouldn't have.
The anesthesiologist with tears in his eyes told me, "I'm not going to lie, she's not doing good. This is the worst day of my career."
He was thinking of his career while my little girl was fighting for her life!?
He felt bad so I said simply, "I know you tried your best," wondering if my happy sweet little girl would ever smile at me again.
There was no point in making a scene. It wouldn't save her. It might kill her. I had to step back and breathe. I needed to focus on giving her all the love and strength I had inside and hope everyone doing their jobs would be enough to fix whatever had gone wrong. Paramedics and police filled the hall.
"She turned blue," "Can't keep her heart rate up." "Epinephrine." "She's coded." "Ephedrine."
"Anything we can do for you?" A voice broke through the haze of information flying about me.
"Can you tell her father what's going on, he's in...." I whispered the details to the officer.
His face paled. He repeated my words back to me. "I'll see what I can do." He took down the information and hurried away.
I watched the crowd surrounding my daughter, so thick I couldn't see her. "I don't want to be in the way," I said, glancing at the waiting vehicle outside the glass door.
"You can wait in the ambulance," an EMT suggested.
I couldn't bring myself to go that far from my daughter's pale lifeless form.
"You can sit over here," someone said, "I'll get you a chair and you won't be in the way."
I found myself sitting with no memory of getting from point A to point B. Like a higgs boson particle my brain skipped the space between.
"Anything I can do for you?" I looked up. The tan and camouflage uniform was a cross between military combat and police styles. Large black letters across the chest indicated the role this person played.
I met the sheriff's intense gaze, he couldn't help my daughter, he couldn't make the nightmare go away. "Can you put your hand on my shoulder?" I asked my voice strange, it was difficult to breathe.
It wouldn't be the strong arms around me, I'd always hoped to have at times like this but it would be enough warmth to survive the next few minutes of frozen hell digging out my chest with icy claws.
He slammed his hand down on my shoulder a few times, unfamiliar with the comfort of stillness. I ignored it. It didn't matter and perhaps i deserved the rough treatment. Maybe this was my fault and he'd be arresting me in a few hours.
I thought she was big enough but she wasn't. I did this to her. I'd listened to someone who didn't know what they were talking about and Spunky was paying for my stupid idiotic trusting nature.
Had she helped herself to food while I was in the bathroom this morning? I didn't think so but I couldn't be sure.
Had the anesthesiologist put the balloon too far down? Why was her heart continuing to decelerate?
The sheriff's hand rested on my shoulder. I focused on the warmth, centering myself. What went wrong was a question for another time. For now these might be my last moments with my daughter.
Above all she'd known she was loved. It was a small comfort but it helped. They began transferring her to the ambulance. I could see her tiny body, her normally dark pink lips white with death.
As I stepped into the ambulance I wondered if my daughter would ever get a birthday party. I was going to give her one but a kidney infection on top of Covid and then C. Diff had put it on the back burner. I shouldn't have let those stop me.
Waiting on the steps at home was an Amazon box to celebrate Spunky's first dental fillings.
Chocolate, bubble gum, orange cream and orange-flavored tubes of toothpaste. Would she get the chance to try the new flavors?
My sweet girl loved picking which toothbrush and toothpaste to use, even though she hated getting her teeth brushed.
"Please, be okay," I prayed wondering how I would deal if she wasn't.
A few days before I learned her father was never going to be a part of her life and we were never going to be a family.
I'd been holding my breath waiting for him to get healthy again so he could be a father and I wouldn't be alone in raising her but he'd fallen for another, someone who was there when I couldn't be.
It was hard to believe he would choose anything over what we'd shared and raising our wonderful daughter together.
Part of me didn't believe he was. He hadn't even had the guts to tell me himself. His fiance did.
I'd set him free, hoping it would help him get better faster. I didn't want him to be alone with his demons but I never thought it was forever.
She was supposed to be a crutch, but he was sacrificing everything to be with her, even when their chances of divorce were over 167.5%.
I'd done the math, save one single variable, children from previous relationships. A variable that increases divorce rates but the amount hasn't been quantified.
In my grief, I once again considered putting Spunky up for adoption. Though at times I missed my child-free life, it wasn't that, she was the greatest kid anyone could ever hope for, but single parenthood was not ideal for any child.
I knew I'd miss Spunky more than all I'd given up and sacrificed for her and though she wasn't responsible for my fulfillment, I would never feel completely fulfilled without her. But the biggest reason to keep her was the 'maybe someday.' Maybe someday I'd meet someone who would treat me the way every woman should be treated and be the father every little girl deserves to have.
I was already taking steps towards a bright horizon for us. I begged the universe she would be alive with me when we got there.
No matter the cost I was always going to choose Spunky. Res's new amore chose to give up custody of her children to an addict to be with him.
To me, she wasn't worth the piss in a New York subway, but Res's mother liked her. After all Angola was costing Res, I couldn't see why, but those were the thoughts of yesterday.
Today, I might lose our child forever.
The paramedic shifted Spunky's legs to the froggy position all newborns take. I remembered her warm body being laid on mine after the C-section and her rooting for my nipple and latching on for the first time.
She looked even smaller than the day she was cut from my belly. I took a picture because I wanted to have a reminder of how precious and fragile she was.
The EMT's hand larger than Spunky's head belonged to a woman. My tiny girl I'd thought was finally big enough, was still too small. I should have brushed her gums and begun brushing her teeth the second the pearly whites first started slicing through my nipples, but it was easier to listen to an older generation who said she didn't need it yet instead of the experts.
But it was experts who made me think the anesthesia would be okay, that she'd be safe.
We arrived at the hospital. A team of medical professionals waiting. Two doctors and six or seven more assisting.
She was dying. My angel. My world was dying.
I couldn't do anything but watch helplessly. "Come back to me sweetheart," I called believing she might hear me.
I had a big life, it was OK if I died. She hadn't yet begun to live and since losing Res over two years ago to mental illness I lived for Spunky, I'd be ok leaving and walking into the next room if it meant she'd have decades to make her mark.
Her oxygen began to rise.
She started fighting the doctors and other attending medical professionals.
"It's ok honey. Let them help you." I tried not to sound scared. I hoped I was being reassuring.
"Can I stand by her?" I asked, not wanting to interrupt or be in the way.
"Of course," someone said.
Her eyes were taped closed, as though she were already being prepared for some archaic funeral rites.
"It's alright," I said believing she would make it now.
She continued struggling, fighting the doctors. "Can I take the tape off her eyes?"
Someone said yes and I peeled the tape away expecting her bright blue eyes to open and look up at me with the same adoration and capacity for love I used to see every time her daddy looked at me.
She looked so much like him.
Her beautiful blue eyes didn't open. She continued fighting the doctors, her pain audible.
They pulled a bloody tube from her. One of the staff said something about it being too big and it must have scratched her trachea.
Her eyes fluttered open as I continued trying to reassure and calm her.
They sent us by ambulance to another hospital for observation. My daughter began to recover.
One of the first responders the police officer who'd informed her father of what was happening brought her a stuffed bear and an owl so big she could barely lift it.
We were sent home.
A day passed with me holding my breath waiting for something else to go wrong. Her father didn't call to say he loved her, to tell her how glad he was she was okay.
None of his family did.
None of his family did.
My doctor's office called with results from the 48-hour halter monitor, "Let me guess you didn't find anything." They'd already called letting me know the blood glucose test results, I had hypoglycemia. I'd worn the halter monitor before going in for the blood glucose test, if anything had been abnormal with it they would have called me earlier.
"Actually, your heart is stopping," the nurse said casually. A large part of me didn't care, I'd felt there was something wrong with my heart since before kindergarten. I was mildly surprised and glad they'd finally found something. It meant I wasn't crazy.
My chest still hurt, I needed to know Spunky would be alright. I scheduled Spunky's follow-up visit with her pediatrician. Since she'd aspirated, she'd begun wheezing in her sleep.
The next day Res still didn't call.
Her pediatrician prescribed an anti-inflammatory and assured me Spunky was going to recover.
Despite finally starting to relax and believe she would live, my chest still ached and a familiar stomach pain returned.
With Spunky on the mend, I decided it was finally time to get it checked out since for once the stomach pain wasn't going to be a 3 A.M. emergency visit.
At the urgent care, they gave me an EKG, as usual it didn't show anything but since I told them I'd just found out my heart was stopping, and I had chest pain, they ran another one. It showed a slight abnormality, they ran another EKG, but again nothing.
The ceiling turned slightly green, but for me, hallucinating was a normal thing when I was in post-trauma.
The doctor was about to send me home with anxiety meds and call it good. He asked if I was okay with that, I nodded, feeling a little loopy and drunk.
"I trust you, you're the doctor," Loopy turned to giddy. "If you say nothing is wrong, nothing is wrong." I began to giggle like I'd just gotten out of taking a test by playing sick and enjoyed seeing my parents' annoyance at having been tricked.
The doctor changed his mind and sent me to the emergency department.
The nurse talked to me about conversion disorder, but despite her belief, I was only mentally ill, the E.R. doctor did every test available at the small backwater hospital. Stomach pain, something I'd long suspected but only recently discovered could only be diagnosed during an attack was finally diagnosed. Pancreatitis.
He kept me for fourteen hours. Another doctor took over and the emergency department filled up. I was released, my chest pain may be stress? Or was it undiagnosed?
Hours later my phone rang. Big city university hospital calling to schedule a cardiologist appointment for the same day. I explained I lived four hours away. They scheduled me for the next day.
Shit, I must be dying, I thought knowing cardiologists are typically booked up months in advance.
Res still didn't call. None of his family did.
My sister sent Spunky a cute stuffed puppy dog. Others called to tell her how glad they were she was okay. Her dentist called. The anesthesiologist called. The E.R. doctors called.
In the city, they gave me an ECG. Two seconds looking at it, "Blood isn't getting to part of your heart, you have a septal infarction." The cardiologist politely informed me.
Google clarified. I had a heart attack. Blood wasn't getting to the septum, the wall between the left and right upper ventricles of my heart.
The damage was permanent. My heart was broken and this time, it was forever.
She sent me home with another heart monitor. This one I was to wear for thirty days. She also had me scheduled for a stress test with an ultrasound in two weeks.
As I count down the days until the stress test, I spend time with my daughter, cherishing each moment with her and making arrangements in case I don't make it.
At least I'll die sexy, I tell myself, and while in death no one is actually sexy, it still makes me smile.
If I have to die for Spunky to live, I'm not going to be too sad. She's worth dying for.
She was the reason I'd worn the 48-hour heart monitor. If those results hadn't come I never would have gone to urgent care for the chest pain. So maybe she saved my life. I don't know. I just know as far as children go she is the kindest and most thoughtful child I've ever been around. She amazes me every day.
Her father called four days after Spunky was released only to hang up when I answered, then he stopped calling.
Spunky has told me she wants me to find her a new daddy. I had to explain to her why her daddy wasn't going to be in her life the way I'd been telling her.
Now, I'm looking at finding her both a new father and a new mother.
Spunky has told me she wants me to find her a new daddy. I had to explain to her why her daddy wasn't going to be in her life the way I'd been telling her.
Now, I'm looking at finding her both a new father and a new mother.
Depending on what the doctor says over the next two months will determine the path I take. I hope if I am to die, I'll have the chance to make the transition as easy as possible for Spunky. Helping facilitate her relationship with a new family will be one of the last gifts I might ever give her.
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