No Place Like Home...Miracles Happen

Above is Michael and his bride Shannon, As I look back on his skateboarding injury, I have learned more than anyone can imagine. 

 There is No Place Like Home…Brain Fugue

When Michael came out of his coma one of the first things he said was, “I want to go home.”  This statement immediately pulled me to my all time favorite movie, the “Wizard of Oz”  with the message of seeking intelligence, heart, and courage…so when Michael constantly repeated this statement it broke my heart and made me think of flying monkeys, lions who were scared, and witches who shrink when they touch water. 

Mike was tied into bed hand and foot with an oxygen meter clipped to his toe.  Along with his plea to go home he often said, “Mom, get the scissors and cut these things off.” 

When I responded, “Honey, I don’t have scissors with me.” 

He would then say, “But you are friends with the nurses…and I know they have scissors.

He was so persuasive and crafty, like Houdini, he often was able to quietly work the restraints loose, and his toes would unhook the O2 monitor and shoot it across the room sending the alarms into a loud cacophony.  In the middle of the night when he constantly removed the monitor, in desperation for some quiet, I put the monitor on my finger and fell asleep in a chair with my head on the bed.  Before the nurse took his vitals and did an assessment in the morning, I would put it back on his big toe…he would look at me and smile and not fiddle with the monitor for an hour or two.

His recovery went through the classic levels of coma scale symptoms, and he was soon moved into a rehabilitation unit.  I stayed with him during the day and was able to manage his crazy behavior, but because of his volatility the hospital assigned a sitter to keep him in bed during the pm shift.  Often as soon as the sun went down he tried to leave the hospital saying, “If you won’t take me home, I’ll walk, it’s not too far.”  Well this tiny “sitter”, woman was about as useful as lips on a duck when it came to keeping him in bed during the night.  Her 5’1’ thin frame was no match for 6’2’ Mike.  The first night I came over around ten in the evening and realized he had sun downer syndrome.  That is a condition, when as soon as the sun goes down a patient will become unreasonable.  Anyway I walked into his room to find four nurses in the room…each had one limb and they were slowly persuading him to get back into bed.

He saw me as I came into the room and said, “Oh Mom, get me out of here…If you loved me you’d take me home.”  (Knife into the heart)…

I called Big Pat and said, “You have to spend the nights here, I don’t think the nurses can handle him.”  So that night they moved in a sleeper cot and Patrick spent every night with crazy boy while I held down the fort in the daytime.

At regular intervals during the night, Mike would sit up abruptly and start to get out of bed and stand up with his IV hanging, his brain drain bulb swinging down next to his cheek and he swayed trying to get his balance to manage the walk to the door.  Patrick would grab him and wrap his arms around him, swaying and rocking, blocking the way to the door and say, “I love you, your mom loves you, your family loves you, and we want you to get well so you have to stay until the doctor’s say you can leave.” 

Mike would beg to leave but soon his strength would give out and his legs would start to fold and Patrick would sit him down and then lay him back in bed…until the next time when he would sit up abruptly…then the scenario would be re-played.

I had stuffed this memory deep into my head until one day about a year later when I was back teaching and had students at United Cerebral Palsy Institute.  It was lunch time and my students were in the dining hall assisting the patients to eat.  All of a sudden one of the young men who was very crippled, started to yell. “I want to go home, Mommy take me home.”

Until that time I had been pretty strong and brave during Mike’s recovery, following all the physicians’ orders and explaining the physiological implications to family and friends in a stoic fashion.  Well…hearing those words found the crack in my armor and my heart broke…I was back experiencing the painful plea to "go home."  I began to cry and sob with the memory of those difficult days.  I quickly left the room and after about 20 minutes of hiding in the bushes next to the building.  I called my students together and dismissed them three hours early.  My eyes were red and watery, and no one asked why they had the afternoon off…and I never told them.

Since then the thought has occurred to me…”Where is home…is it where you grew up, went to school, spent your childhood, where your family is?  When you are grandparents with kids spread across the country, is home when you are visiting, or when they come visit where you are living…even if you’ve moved.  Is home a house, people, or spirit? I don’t think home is a house of mortar and wood and plaster.  A house can be comfortable and maybe familiar but it is not home without people.  My conclusion on this subject is that home is where people you love surround you.  So really, home could be a tent or a tree.  I learned so many things about life and myself going through this tragedy with Michael. And we were blessed with a Miracle.