50/50

My dear friend Mrs. K wrote yesterday about 50/50 chances. Being in the middle of a 50/50 is a tough place. Things could literally roll one way or the other. I know about this place.

I remember it quite clearly, although it was 15 years ago. Nick, my oldest son, was 5 years old. He was out in the driveway on a quiet Saturday afternoon, trying to climb up the side of the bed of the pick-up truck my husband had brought home from work...you know, scaling it, as a Ninja would do. Of course, he was trying to be sneaky about it because Ninjas are kinda sneaky, and besides, his dad told him not to climb on the truck. So of course he waited until Pete came into the house briefly, to try it. We were called outside by the most horrendous blood curdling screaming you can imagine. It brought all the neighbors out of their houses too. When Nick had tried climbing up the side of the truck, his little hand got smashed in one of the latch-down hooks. Not just smashed. He cut off part of his middle finger on his right hand. I handed the baby (LG) off to my neighbor, grabbed Nick, and wrapped his bloody hand in a clean dishtowel. By this time we were in the house, and Pete and I were getting a better look than we really wanted at his hand, Nick screaming bloody hysterical murder the entire time. Not that I blamed him. I wasn't one to boss my husband around alot (maybe part of our problem) but on that day I told him to get out there and find that finger. And he did. He put it in a plastic container, the neighbor called the emergency room (this was the time before cell phones TBCP) and we dashed off to the hospital which was about a mile away.



Are you still with me here????



At the emergency room, they rushed him in immediately, and thankfully the first thing they did was give him a shot of morphine. He became considerably calmer. I know he was in pain, but the hysteria on his part was taking over, and of course I was doing my best to fight my own. I was thinking---"I think it will be OK, they are doing so much with re-attachment these days, and we got here so quickly" when the doctor came out and said he did not think they were going to be able to reattach. He said the trauma at the wound site was too much and that Nick was just going to have to learn to live with it. But he said we were welcome to seek a second opinion, even though he did not think it would do any good. Pete stood up to the doctor and said we would most definitely seeking that second opinion. Which was good because I was standing there reeling, in shock.

This hospital system was and still is the largest HMO in the country. Luckily, our option for a second opinion was at Stanford University in Palo Alto. So we loaded up our drugged-out 5 year old, and his detached appendage which was now hospital packed in a sterile container, and headed across the Bay. I called the neighbor to let her know what was going on and she offered to keep the baby.

In reality, Palo Alto is about 30 miles away from where we lived, but because of traffic and the lay of the land it took nearly 2 hours to get there. And if you are familiar with the SF Bay Area I don't need to explain it to you. Anyway, we finally arrived at the University Hospital, where the statff was expecting us. The attending resident (student!) looked Nick over very carefully, and we told him about the other doctor's grim prognosis. He seemed to weigh his options carefully, but he did not seem especially pessimistic. He said he was calling in Dr. Lucy Lu (not his real name, but for the life of me I never could remember that guy's name) off the golf course because he was the Hand Reattachment Specialist and the resident wanted his opinion. Dr Lucy Lu showed up within the hour---quite impressive, because he was dressed as if he was at Woodside Country Club---he obviously was not hitting balls on a municipal 9 holer. Though I seriously doubt Palo Alto has a municipal 9 hole golf course anyway. But I digress. Dr. Lucy Lu arrived and looked at Nick for about 5 minutes. Then he called Pete and I out into the hallway, and said he thought we had a 50/50 chance for a successful reattachment. Pete and I looked at each other in amazement. What a difference in attitude! We said "yeah! Go for it!" He explained the process and why he thought it could work. Which also explained why it might not. He told me that Nick would need to come back to see him on Tuesday, and then once a week after that. He said we would know the outcome in about 2 weeks. Then I guess he went back to the Country Club, because the resident actually did the procedure in the emergency room. He put a drape up so Nick (and me) could not see, and I stood at the head of his bed and talked my boy through it. He was so drugged up he did not cry. Pete stood at the foot of the bed and watched the surgeon/resident/student.



They wrapped up his hand and said Nick had to take it easy. No running around, no playing. I'm thinking...that won't be easy, he's 5 years old! But I made it work. I was the strictest Mama ever.



After that day, I could think of nothing but 50/50. I would sometimes feel myself descending into that place of fear and despair, but then I would catch myself. I would remember how the whole scenario changed when the expert arrived on the scene. I was new (again) to praying, but I prayed constantly, and I did alot of visualizing. I never told Nick he had a 50/50 chance of losing his finger, I only acted as if he would keep it. He was a very smart little boy (still smart, just big now) and I did not need his own mind working against him. One time my mother-in-law blurted it out in front of him and I just glared at her so fiercely she got the message. I pulled her aside later and told her,"we don't go there". But in my heart, I was terrified. Although common sense told me that there were worse things that could happen, I did not want my boy growing up with a handicap, or a deformed hand. It was on my mind and on my heart non-stop. As we got ready for our second follow appointment 10 days after the accident I really started fighting the fear. Because I knew on this visit the doctor was going to unwrap the wound. And I knew that at 10 days, we would know which direction the whole thing was going.



The night before our 2nd appointment I had a dream. Nick and I were sitting in the waiting room and Dr. Lucy Lu called us back into an examining room which we had not been in before. It was much farther back. The floor in the room was black and white checked, and the walls were turquoise. There were windows all along the outside wall. All the equipment was shiny stainless steel. There were other people with us in the room but I did not know who they were or why they were there. In my dream, the doctor detached the splint and slowly unwrapped the bandages that went all the way up Nick's forearm. He turned Nick's palm on his damaged hand up, and I saw where the worst part of the wound now only had a jagged red scar, and the previously unattached digit was obviously healthy and attaching well.



When I woke up I felt relieved and hopeful and doubtful and kind of crazy at the same time. We made the drive to Palo Alto for our 10:00 appointment. We had been to this office the previous Tuesday, for our first follow up. The doctor had said it was too early to unwrap the wound, so we went directly from the waiting room to the plastic (splint-making) lab where Nick was fitted for his super-expensive body formed plastic splint. But for our second appointment, we were called back into a part of the office I had not been before. The doctor was walking with us and told me that there would be some students in the room, observing. As we got closer to the examining room I saw the floor was a black and white commercial -tile check. Then my head and my gut started reeling and when Dr. Lucy Lu opened the door, I saw that we were going into a room with the black checked floor, turquoise walls, windows all along the outside wall, and shiny stainless steel equipment. It was, in fact, the exact same room from my dream. The students politely formed a semi-circle around the doctor as he examined Nick. He detached the splint and unwrapped his bandages and turned his hand palm up. Nick's hand looked exactly as it had in the dream. The only difference was that in reality, he had a bunch of black stitches, and under the stitches I could see the same jagged scar line that I had seen in my dream. The formerly detached digit was pink and healthy. Mentally, I was in a place of wanting to examine the wound and get as much info from Dr. Lucy Lu as possible. At the same time another part of me was having a hard time breathing, I felt like I was going to pass out. I was living my dream, in the best and most literal way. I was beyond amazed.



Nick went on to completely heal. He did go thru about a year of physical therapy because there was bone damage and tissue loss. He has a slight deformity there, but no one would ever notice it unless they looked real hard. He has been playing guitar since he was about 12 and he is also a pretty good drummer. He is also a printer and a visual artist.

So...that was my life lesson about 50/50. Those actually are not terrible odds although when you are the one facing them, they are terrifying. We can call on help from our friends, our family, our community. And from Heaven above. Those things, I believe can tip the scales in our favor.

Praying for you and your entire family, Mrs. K.