07-14-23

“I’m going to die.”

How does one respond when their child looks them in the eye and says those horrific words?

Worse, what does a parent do when they’re half an hour away from home and hears that statement over the phone, no one responding on the other line to explain what was happening?

Most parents won’t ever have to ponder those questions.

Mine weren’t so lucky.

 ~

On Thursday, July 6th at 4:25 PM, Dr. Ben Silver received a phone call.

That day had been busy in the clinic, like always. Patient consultations and conferences with colleagues were all part of the familiar hospital hustle. Having been a nephrologist for decades, Dr. Silver was well-versed in the routine, finishing his last consultation of the day with a young man who would have to be put on dialysis in the near future. He had completed his work earlier than expected, though, and used the few calm moments he had to start chipping away at the large stack of paperwork that loomed on his desk. Somehow, that stack never seemed to get smaller, no matter how many hours he spent scribbling with his signature blue ink pens at his desk with the chair that didn’t quite roll correctly on its wheels.

Despite his love for his job, there was a layer of difficulty and stress that exhausted him, the quick decisions that had to be made every hour in order to save countless lives. His eldest child, Ella, an aspiring doctor herself, had shadowed him just earlier that week. She was EMT-certified and was accepted into a direct medical program, something that made his heart swell with pride. Without a passionate student or resident there to add a layer of fun to his day, he was drained, tired, and ready to go back home to see his family and probably take a nap.

There aren’t many moments in Dr. Silver’s workday when he is free to pick up a call when his phone starts ringing. Usually, he is too busy with a patient or another medical worker, sometimes in the middle of responding to a code or rushing into the unit when a dialysis patient’s condition suddenly or severely worsens.

If it was any other day or time, he probably wouldn’t have answered the phone. But he had a moment to breathe right then, so he did.

A soft smile tugged on the corners of his lips as he glanced down at the call, seeing that it was coming from his second-born daughter. It was an interruption to the tedious paperwork, but certainly a welcome one, and he clicked his pen closed as he picked up his phone.

“Hello?”

“Oh god, please- my sister’s neck is swelling, I- she can’t breathe.” The muffled, choked dialogue flooded his office, making his heart plummet.

His wife's screaming became audible and he winced, mouth agape with the horror of what was going on. It was incomprehensible, and he had little idea what was going on. Even so, fear clutched his form, squeezing him so tightly that he felt like he was going to vomit.

He pressed the phone closer to his ear, gasping as shallow gasps and pained whimpers came through the speaker. Grabbing his phone and bag, he rushed out of his office, slamming the door shut with the lights still on and his pen still sitting atop an unfinished sheet of scribbles, his illegible handwriting marking up the page that frustrated nurses would have to decipher later. As he rushed out of the doors, he ignored the people wishing him a good day, quickly telling the secretary that there was an emergency, and he would be out.

"I’m dying- I'm really gonna die. I- I can't breathe, please-"

He felt his heart ache as he listened to the girl's shaky voice and the sentences she was able to get out in between shallow gasps for air. Ella was not a dramatic person. She had always been incredibly calm and collected, knowing the medical world well even as a seventeen-year-old. Dr. Silver knew that if she said she was dying, there was a very good chance that the “goodnight” he had wished her the day prior was the last time he would see her alive.

Brushing roughly by the hood of the car as he tore towards the driver’s side, he flung the door open, ending the twenty-four second call as he did so. Blood rushed in his ears, blocking out any noise around him, and he felt his sweaty palms slip a little as he grasped the wheel. There was nothing he could do.

Please, God, don't let my little girl die.

~

It had been a pretty peaceful day. Riley  was busy, though, checking the calendar app on her phone and sighing upon the realization that she only had forty-some minutes until she had to leave home again. She'd worked all day- a simple, tedious job as a cashier at her local supermarket- and then had gone out with friends for ice cream, leaving her with only an hour at home before she went to babysit for a family just down the street.

Her sister was sitting in Riley ’s room, icing her neck, which was still healing from the half-thyroid removal surgery that had occurred just ten days prior. She had a type of localized cancer in the half that was removed, but it had been completely eradicated by the removal, so a second surgery wouldn't be needed. The whole family had celebrated by going out to eat- after all, Ella was cancer-free and had scored amazingly on her last exams of her high school career. Things seemed to be getting better and better for the teen.

Riley  walked over to a plant in the room, shaking the base of the small tree, which looked more like a pathetic bush than anything else, and laughed as she did so. "I saw a tiktok that says you're supposed to shake your plants to make them grow better, so I figured I’d try it."

Silence. "My neck hurts."

Riley  turned around, still nonchalant. "Okay...?"

"It's really bad." Ella looked up at Riley , eyes widening. Something was wrong.

"Do you want me to go get Mom?" A pause. Ella had her hands around her neck, the forgotten ice pack discarded on the floor.

"I can't breathe."

Those three words got Riley  moving, anxiousness settling deep inside her stomach as she rushed down the stairs, everything else a blur. "Mom! Mom?" Their mother was nowhere to be found, not responding to the girl's yelling. Riley  turned back around, running back upstairs. "El, are you okay? What's happening?!"

"I can't breathe, my neck - my neck is bleeding." Riley  pulled open a bathroom cabinet, handing her sister a clean rag.

"It's bleeding?" She peered closer at the neck, not seeing the supposed blood her sister was talking about. Eyes widening, she gagged as she saw the tumorous lump that her sister was holding, a ball the size of an apple that was not present just half a minute ago. A hand flew up to cover her mouth, trying to calm the thumping of her heartbeat, trying to remain stoic.

"No, not outside." The other girl breathed. "It's bleeding inside my neck, I can feel it."

Riley  made eye contact with her sister, hands trembling and peripheral vision blackened.

"I'm dying." Blue-tinted lips whispered. Ella’s eyes looked watery and absolutely terrified- Riley  had never seen her look like that before. Her sister’s hands were still around her neck, a futile effort to apply pressure and stop the bleeding. A part of Riley  wondered how things had gotten so bad so quickly - just minutes earlier she had stolen Ella's phone to take selfies, the two of them laughing at the unflattering pictures that she had taken.

Was she really going to lose her best friend? Riley  didn't know a world without her sister.

She swallowed. Hard. It was no time to cry, no place for her to panic and let her sister go, no matter how sick she felt with the pure terror knotting her stomach, no matter the bile climbing her throat. Ella's phone was the closest and Riley  knew the password. Grabbing it, her finger missed the button a couple of times as she dialed 911 and hit call.

She sat, crouched next to her sister, as the phone rang. She placed her hand on Ella's shoulder, rubbing it in a comforting gesture, one that she did so often that it was routine.

"It's okay, you're okay,” she told her sister, fighting to control the quiver in her voice. She didn’t know if the barely audible reassurance reached her sister’s ears, but she continued, not sure whether she was comforting Ella or herself. "I got you, you're not going to die."

Looking over at her own phone and still waiting for the operator to pick up the emergency call, Riley  unlocked it and clicked on her father's contact, hitting call. Moments later, she left her phone in the hallway next to her sister, shooting up and hurrying into the next room so that she could speak to the operator and hear the responses over her Mom's screaming, wailing voice.

She didn't know that her dad had picked up, oblivious to the fact that he had heard everything.

~

Ben pulled his car into the parking lot at Unity hospital, ignoring the way his tires screeched at the sharp turn. The suffocating silence in the car allowed the thumping of his heart to be heard clearly, even through the harsh ringing of his ears. A million what-ifs flew through his head as he parked with haste and rushed towards the doors of the hospital, catching up to his wife, Kate, as she was walking in at the same time. Part of him wondered if a major artery had burst, as the amount of blood that had filled Ella's neck within moments was incredibly alarming. He knew due to his experience in the medical field that even if her vitals were temporarily stable, it could change within moments.

After all, it wasn't as simple as if there was fluid in the lungs or something simply lodged into her throat. He could have fixed these, he knew exactly what to do for either one. This was different. The pocket of blood that had formed in her neck was still filling, and as it did so it was pushing more and more into her trachea. All they could do was hope that it was strong enough to hold its shape and keep some airflow going until they were able to put a breathing tube in, a dangerous operation due to the possibility of aspiration.

He and Kate were let into the emergency room where Ella was staying, the girl having retained her consciousness during the ambulance ride to the hospital. The two parents watched their first daughter as she laid still in the bed, and Ben noted the wideness of her eyes as she scanned the room, taking in the sight of the twenty-something doctors that surrounded her, each looking more nervous and tense than the last.

Whatever was happening to her at the moment was highly unusual, and Ben knew that well. Never, ever, in his twenty years as a doctor had he seen something like this. His heart hurt as he looked at the girl, remembering the first time he had seen her, his rainbow baby, with small fisted hands and tiny feet tucked into a swaddle, face contorted and crying as she squeezed her eyes shut. Memories of her first day in the world made emotions hit him like a truck, and he pushed away the thought in the back of his head that whispered that today may be her last.

His breathing was hard as he made eye contact with her. Scared hazel eyes met his, widened the largest he had ever seen. He didn't think he had seen her blink even once in the room, the motionless girl remaining frozen and terrified on the bed.

They were preparing for emergency surgery, hoping to find the source of the bleeding and stop it before she had lost too much. Before it was too late to save her.

It was almost voyeuristic to watch the struggle. It was like watching a dystopian dance, one of the girl’s hands on its shoulder and the other curled around the fingers of death itself. The two were swaying through the room, dipping and turning in a disturbingly beautiful routine, each fighting to control the other.

One misstep and his daughter would plummet into darkness, never to open those cunning, glossy eyes of hers again.

The love that a father has for his child is an unspeakable thing, so great in degree and immeasurably precious to him, more precious than anything else in the world. He could practically hear the first wail of the strong-lunged firstborn child. The day she was born had changed his life, altered him as a person so much that he couldn’t imagine going back to who he had been before the baby had blinked up at him with those big, bright eyes that sparkled in the fluorescent hospital lighting.

Though a nervous parent, Ben had loved every single second of his first baby’s life, loved the sheer feeling of pride that filled his form and made it impossible for him not to beam at his child. No matter how busy work was, Ben made sure that he was there to watch each and every one of her elementary school plays or award ceremonies.

All of these beautiful, joyful memories filled his mind as the incessant beeping of one of the many machines hooked up to the girl droned on and on. He bit the inside of his cheek, hard. It physically hurt him to stand there, watching, squeezing his wife’s hand, no way to intervene and help his daughter. No way to take her place on that big, awful white bed, no way to take the pain she felt as a doctor shoved a breathing tube down her throat, pursed lips and latex gloves offering no comfort to the tears burning in the corners of her eyes. No way for him to die and let her live, a trade he would take in a heartbeat if it was an option.

The sheer helplessness that he felt watching her made him think back to himself forty years prior, a young child peeking up at his father laying on a similar white bed that Ella was on now, taking in the sight of the proud man sleeping, hooked up to machines.

He had felt such childlike helplessness back then, when there was nothing for him to do that could heal his father or support his parents. The same sentiment from back then filled his form now, the hauntingly familiar hopelessness that he had never wanted to feel again. That was why he had become a doctor – to help others, to be strong and able enough to fight their battle with them.

He’d done everything to grow up, to mature, to make sure that he was ready for this. And yet, there he was. A child once more. Holding back emotion, just telling Ella to remain still, and calm, and to remember that she is loved.

The parents were told to leave the room and to wait for updates in the main lobby downstairs. Given a number and told to hope and pray that all would go well.

Told to tell their daughter that they loved her. Ben knew what they really meant.

Just in case the girl wasn’t going to wake up, he had to say goodbye.