Help Me! I am Bleeding Somewhere!

Nine surgeries in nine years...but, the tenth was not planned.

After waiting 6 hours, the surgical team finally gave me the word, "You can come back to see your son."

As I approached, I can tell he drifted back under the effects of the anesthesia. (This next process never gets easy, and it never becomes normalized.) I patiently wait through the violent shake of his left leg and then quickly followed by the right. A few seconds later, his arm throws his hand towards his face as the nurse skillfully catches it and gently returns it to his side. She half-smiles, trying to console me. With my own half-smile in return, I replied, "It's okay, this is his 9th surgery. He's always slow to wake up." After 40 more minutes of this routine, he finally wakes up enough to say, "Hi Dad, you all right?" I continue the fun exchange with my standard response, "Yes, I'm okay, thank you for asking." (He knew I was lying, and as always, he was more concerned about me than for himself.)

As we move through the familiar routine of being discharged, the nurse asks, "how far is your drive?" With another half-smile, "it's not bad, just over an hour." (Of course, that was also a lie. During his surgery, they used some cartilage from his floating ribs, and he was going to feel every bump on the way home. I was going to be on high alert, concentrating, trying to make it a smooth ride.)

Finally, it was time to go. With one last check of the surgical sites, the nurse gave Max some water and a pain pill for the ride home. But, with a quick reflexive jolt, followed by two little coughs, the water, and medication, were now in his lap. With an "oops," the nurse looked at Max. Now trying to console the nurse, he said, "It's okay..." knowing he was trying to use words sparingly. With another half-smile, I finished his sentence with, "it happens every time."

Only minutes before leaving, the nurse kindly continued the discharge instructions. But the vibe in the room quickly changed when Max diverted his attention towards me. "Dad! I'm bleeding somewhere!" and the nurse responded to his words with a casual, "I just checked your surgical sites, and everything looked good."

But that conversation was not good enough for Max. This time, with pure conviction, no more side-eyes, no more half-smiles, Max made sure he locked eyes with the nurse before delivering six bone-chilling words.

"Help me! I am bleeding somewhere!"

The hairs on the back of my neck caught the seriousness of the situation. Those words eerily hung in the air as the youth of my son disappeared. We felt the adrenaline surge through the room as the nurse's pupils dilated. Quickly, with heightened attention, she noticed the new swelling barely beneath his skin. As if Max had predicted the future, we watched two little drops of blood swell out from under the bandages and gently rolled down his side. With an even greater conviction of surprise, she locked eyes with Max and quietly whispered, "you were right!" as we watched the swelling rise before our eyes. And with that, Max looked up at me with eyes I had never seen, with eyes no parent ever wants to see from their child. His grip tightened around my hand as his plea for help was down to one more word as every letter seemed to crackle with fear, "D-A-D?"

As I continued to watch this slow-motion moment unfold, the relationship between the nurse and the patient changed forever. It felt like mundane moments of a normalized job routine and the normalized experience of nine surgeries. Then, it all came down to a singular moment and a connection between two people, forever etched in my memory.

My attention jolted brought back to the moment as a new surge of adrenaline filled the air, and already on the phone, the nurse was way ahead of us with pleas of her own "we need you now!"

As I noticed these words fill the room, I was shocked, as if the doctor seemed to show up out of nowhere, with the nurse swiftly and eagerly pointing to the spot just beneath the skin. There were no more drops of blood rolling down his side. All the other drops stayed inside to continuously caused the skin to swell and rise. The doctor looked at Max and then looked at the nurse, "something is not right, let's get this fixed." As the three of them continued to build a connection, I couldn't help but notice the lines between a patient, a nurse, and a doctor had disappeared. One spoke up, one listened, and one reacted. I watched all of this unfold in front of me as I suddenly became a bystander.

The reality of the situation hit home as I listened to the doctor calmly fill the room with reassuring words, "I'll be right back!" before exiting around the corner to be unseen. But my attention stayed focused on the doctor, for I had picked up a slight crackle in his few words as well. Through the reflection of an innocent glass door, I couldn't help but notice his calm demeanor had turned into a hurried dash down the hall as his white coat fluttered through the air like some Superhero cape.

(At that moment, it was confirmed! Doctors are not superheroes, and just like the rest of us, they are human. They have their own feelings, their own emotions, and thank God, their own sense of urgency.)

This time, without warning, multiple doctors and new nurses poured into the room. Before I knew it, there was a soft whisper from a new nurse with a gentle tug at my arm, "Dad...I think it's time for you to move back to the waiting room."

As I was being guided out of the room, two new people quickly filled the space where I was previously standing. With one last glance, Max and I locked eyes. His eyes filled with so many question marks, questions that I couldn't answer, and at that moment, no one could answer. Just before I lost contact with him, his quiet recovery room had quickly turned into a busy operating room. His eyes widened as he looked down to notice the doctors had already started his unscheduled 10th surgery. He may or may not have tried to find me again. I will never know because I was already down the hall and guided out the door.

Reality hit me hard as I watched the echoing sound of the electronic lock from the waiting room door bounce around the room. Under normal conditions, this room would be filled with more than a hundred loved ones patiently waiting for their door to open, but in the middle of a pandemic and being the parent of an underage patient, I was alone.

It was the loneliest and scariest hour of my life.

To make matters worse, as I was attempting to reach out my hand for help from a friend that provided pure peace, I froze in the darkness when my phone flickered from 1% to a dark screen.

When you're at the rock bottom of loneliness, your mind plays tricks on you, "was that the last time I locked eyes with my son, his eyes filled with so many questions?" But I refused to go there. Blinking away the formation of tears, I refused to allow my mind to play that game with me. Quietly I whispered, "you got this." But, when I looked down, holding my dead phone, my mind got the best of me as my knees instantly gave out. As I dropped to the floor, I noticed three of my tears were already ahead of me, splashing and spreading across the floor. When I finally hit the floor, I knew what my tears must have felt like as I bounced and spread across the floor just like those three tears. My only connection was now with my tears as more continued to splash and spread across the floor.

Easing the squeeze on my heart, I calmed myself down enough to find a moment of gratitude. Without the connection between Max and his nurse, we were only a few minutes away from leaving the hospital. With more than an hour of high alert driving, I would have focused, trying to impossibly miss every bump. I would have only noticed him "sleeping" without realizing I was watching him slowly, painlessly, and internally bleed out until it was too late. I was thankful for the pure strength and pure courage of a 15-year-old man being able to speak up for himself. With a few words, "Help me, I am bleeding somewhere," I was thankful he was able to save his own life.

With comforting thoughts of pure peace and gratitude, for more than an hour, I blinked away the endless supply of tears as I stared at the windowless locked door. Some of those tears were for Max, some were for being happy, some were for being faithful, some were for being scared, some were for being blessed, but most were for being lonely. Alone and waiting for the sound of the electronic lock to once again whirl, echo, and bounce through the massively empty room.

Finally, the slow whirl of the electronic lock was released, my life once again froze, waiting forever to see the face that carried the news. Was it going to be a face of relief or the face of...? (I can't even type the word.) Once again, out of another corner of my mind, more tricks showed up. This time I was grateful that humor was triggered when the serious robotic voice from the movie WarGames asked, "Shall We Play A Game?" Seriously? WarGames? But that's exactly what it felt like. A war between good thoughts vs. bad thoughts, so I decided to play along, grateful for the distraction.

I couldn't help but think of the door as a big envelope as a deep-voiced narrator joined in, "the envelope please!" as if it held the result of a winning announcement. As the envelope continued to be opened, every creek of the door sounded like rustling paper, as the result was slowly revealed. I found myself chanting my own pleas, "please let him win, please let him win, please let him win!"

First, it was a foot, followed by a leg, then a hand. The slow-motion speed was pure agony. But as the door continued to open, with pure peace still in my heart, with hope on my chest, while blinking away the last tears of loneliness. I found myself face-to-face, locking eyes with the results from the envelope.

As I approached Max, I was pleased to see everyone's face filled with the same relief, as if Max had just won the grand prize! But I was instantly brought back to reality and understood the seriousness when I caught a glimpse of the hardest working doctor in any hospital, the anesthesiologist. Her expressionless face said it all, "I shouldn't be here but, I'm glad I am." One-by-one, magically, everyone made their way back to the corners of the hospital they randomly appeared. But, not without some happy condolence with either a full-on look or some side-eye glance. Under the conditions not to be expressed out loud, all eyes said the same thing, "congratulations Dad!," as I blinked away the final tears of fear.

As the last person seemed to vanish into thin air, the make-shift operating room returned to its original form. New tears, filled with loyalty, spontaneously showed up as I observed the continuation of the strong connection. Caitlyn, with her original half-smile, was resting her hand on Max's shoulder. I could feel her joy as I watched the rapid succession of blinks fight off her own emotions. She, too, is human. Pure peace had once again shown up. After a few hours of unbroken calm, it was time to drive home, finally.

With one eye on the road and one eye on Max, I had full confidence he was only sleeping as I skillfully dodged every bump on the road. And, as every sleeping kid knows what their home feels like, Max woke-up just as we pulled into the driveway. Looking at me, he once again started our routine, "Hi Dad, you all right?" This time, with happy tears, I responded, "Yes, I'm okay, thank you for asking."

Early next morning, the phone broke the house's silence as "Johns Hopkins Hospital" filled my screen.

It was Caitlyn, Max's nurse.

She casually went through the mundane job of reading a list of scripted questions. As I answered "yes" or "no" to more than 20 of them, I patiently waited for the final question, "do you have any questions for me?" That answer was "YES!" But, before I asked, I said, "I am only asking this question for the positivity of what happened yesterday." Quietly, with a slight unsure pause of where this was going, she said, "Okay."

I only had one question, "Can you please describe to me what happened?" After another drawn-out pause, she removed the boundaries of being Max's nurse and replied, "You have a remarkable son. He caught my attention with such resolve, difficult to realize he is only 15 years old. And especially, while still under the effects of anesthesia, he had the strength to recognize something didn't feel right, and he had the strength to speak up for himself." And with that, the conversation ended with, "Thank you, Caitlyn." (And thank you, Johns Hopkins, for doing everything right and for having the courage of being human.)

While the conversation with Caitlyn was still fresh in my thoughts, I started a conversation with Max. When I deviated from our routine with a "No, I am not okay," he surprised me with his own half-smile as if he knew where this conversation was going to go. With one question, I asked, "Where did you get the strength to be able to speak up and essentially, save your own life." The half-smile quickly disappeared along with the youth in his eyes, his response caught me by surprise, "from your book."

With a pause, he observed my surprise as he continued, "I didn't want to die like grandma Joyce. You tried to save her...but she didn't listen, Uncle Paul tried to save her...but she didn't listen to him either. She could have said something. She could have done something. But, she didn't know what she didn't know and said nothing. I remember from your book, she drew the wrong conclusion, and it cost her everything. If I didn't speak up, I know what it would have done to Mom and you. I couldn't imagine you living through that pain again, especially with me. I had to say something. I had to save my own life."

(Side note: Grandma Joyce was extremely healthy. She exercised daily, ate well, drank little, and loved deeply. She was the definition of a beautiful life. But, one day, she caught a "cold" with severe sinus pressure and a stiff neck. After a brief phone call, later that night, bacterial meningitis crossed the blood-brain barrier and took that beautiful life – 30 years too soon.)

With the deep pause of a few words, I interrupted our conversation, "Every day, I see my Mom in your eyes. You would have loved her, but her beautiful life was taken too soon."

With no more interruptions, he continued..."Just like you have always told us, 'pay attention and be intentional.' I paid attention when my body was telling me something was wrong. I felt cold under my skin. As the cold continued to build and spread, to use your words from the back of your book, I knew this was a 'biological disadvantage.' It was my choice to be intentional about getting the nurse's attention, but when the initial plea for help failed, I knew I had to try again. And the next time, I knew I could not afford to fail again! 'Help me, I am bleeding somewhere,' were the only words I could find. I used my 'Human AI' to alert the nurse's 'Human AI, and I am thankful it worked. I was very intentional about saving my own life. I didn't want to die as grandma Joyce did. I wanted to continue my beautiful life, and a kid should never die before their parents."

The surprises kept coming as he finished our conversation with, "Dad, you know I love you. But, you are not my Superhero! As I have watched you set world records and then write a book, I am determined to become the Superhero of my own life."

Never in a million years would I have ever imagined a book would save my son's life! And, never in two million years would I have ever imagined it would be my book. "I am blessed beyond my own imagination."

I hope you enjoyed this more than true story. I wish for you to become the Superhero of your own life, to find strength and the determination to save your life. Not just in the singularity of a rare moment, but in every moment of your life.