OKLAHOMA CITY — The music wasn’t much comfort.
Sitting in the small waiting room at OU Children’s Hospital, I tried to escape from the overwhelming sense of dread about Zach’s surgery with my son’s iPod.
Ethan had loaned me the gadget because he though some of my favorite music make me feel better.
It didn’t.
Time, it seems, had betrayed me.
The weeks preceding this day seemed to race by and an almost unnatural speed.
But today, time reversed course, and the world stopped in its tracks.
Zach was taken to surgery at 7 a.m., sleeping. Since then, Karen and I had sat in the small waiting room surrounded by a sense of dread which hung over us like the smoke of a wood fire.
Around 9 a.m. the telephone rang.
Debbie, the surgical assistant, called to let me know the surgeons had started and things “were going well.”
I felt myself breathe for the first time in days.
Debbie called the second time at 11 a.m.
“They’re over the halfway point,” she said. “The surgeons still have several things to do but Zach’s fine.”
At 12:30 Debbie called again. She said the surgeons were finished and Zach was OK. I hung up the phone and held Karen.
A few minutes later Dr. Paliotta came to the waiting room and spoke with us. He said things went smoothly and he was able to do all the procedures he needed to do. “We did encounter more scar tissue than expected,” he said. “But we were prepared for it.”
Slowly the sense of dread began to fade.
And, quietly, I thanked the Almighty for looking after my infant son.
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For the record, pediatric thoracic surgeons are not of this earth.
Yeah, I know they’ve had years of medical school, study and training. And, they’ve spend years in residency perfecting their skills.
But they are not of this earth.
Honestly, I don’t know how such a person can set aside all emotion as they stop an infant’s heart, open the chest, rewire the strawberry-sized organ, then restart it to beat again.
Their skill is beyond my comprehension.
This is more than a talent.
This is more than ability.
This is a calling; a connection with God, the universe and the soul that only a handful possess. Dr. Fontan, Dr. Palliota, a few others, are blessed with something the rest of us mortal will never understand.
Something not from this earth.
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The parents who have been there know.
The ones who have spend the countless hours waiting, hoping and praying know well what it’s like to live at the hospital.
They seek hope wherever they can find it.
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For me, hope was a nurse named Jill.
You could tell Jill had kids. From the way she talked to my wife to the gentle, caring way she touched my son, I knew Jill understood.
Jill answered a million questions.
Then she answered a million more.
She quickly befriended Karen and, together, they spent countless hours helping Zach recover from his surgery.
The room seemed brighter when she was there, and even when Zach had the occasional setback, Jill was there to pull him, and the rest of us, through.
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Exactly seven days after we brought Zach to the hospital, he came home.
He still requires a small amount of oxygen during sleep and we monitor his heart rate and his blood oxygen level daily.
He’s also taking a collection of pills that would choke a normal person.
But he’s home.
He’s alive.
And he’s recovering.
He has no idea of the fear.
He won’t remember the pain.
He doesn’t understand how a group of total strangers — from those who delivered his care, to those across the state who offered prayers for his recovery — came to his aid.
But the rest of us, his family, are eternally grateful to each person and every person who touched Zach’s life.
This morning as I drank my coffee, I saw the end result of that effort.
Karen had been up early, feeding Zach and changing diapers. Then, because this week is spring break, she slipped back into bed, trying to recover just a few minutes of last week’s lost sleep.
Zach lay next to her, his tiny hand resting on Karen’s cheek.
Together they rested — in a deep, peaceful bliss — each close enough to the other to know that the pain and the fear of last week had passed.
And, there, bathed in the morning sun, I saw just what it meant to be loved.
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