Wednesday

I woke up early, and called the hospital. Joe's nurse from ICU got on the phone and informed me that Joe had a really bad night. His heart had stopped (twice?) and his oxygen levels were far too low. She told me that I should get to the hospital as soon as possible.

Mel picked me up to take me to the hospital, and I remember that being the worst car ride of my life. (No offense, Mel.) I was crying the whole way, and Mel wasn't sure of the best route to get to the hospital. (I live in a suburb not too far out of Boston, and the hospital was right near Fenway Park. Kind of a confusing place to get to.) She took what may have been the longest route possible, but I couldn't focus enough to give her better directions.

I ran into the hospital, and took the elevator up to Joe's floor. Before the nurse would let me in, she prepped me by saying that Joe looked far worse than he had the night before. But that he could likely hear me, so to try staying positive when speaking to him.

You could not imagine more machines hooked up to one person. He had tubes coming out of every spot possible. He had also blown up to be even larger than he had been the night before, and his ears were folded over from all of the fluid. He was no longer Joe.

The only positive thing was that the doctors had determined it safe to not wear a mask if you had already had the chicken pox. I still had to wear gloves, which was annoying, because I just wanted to touch Joe, skin to skin. But at least my mouth was uncovered.

Wednesday was a long day. My sister arrived at around noon with Joe's parents. They provided the comic relief for the day. Not because they were trying to be funny, but because the questions they asked were so asinine. Joe's dad, when sitting down with the resident in charge for a family meeting, asked the following questions:

Where did you go to undergrad? (who the fuck cares! But he was pleased by the answer, University of Virginia.)
Will the chicken pox leave scars? (that's the least of our worries.)
and, my favorite:
Let me ask you something, have you tried penicillin? (Eureka! That's it! We can save him! Get the penicillin!)

His parents had Joe in their 50's, so they were pretty old at this point, and really couldn't grasp how serious the situation was. Neither of them could remember if they had the chicken pox as children, and in order to visit Joe they would need blood tests confirming that they had. Neither of them wanted to take the blood test. A nurse actually said to them, "This may be your last chance to see your son alive." I ran from the room crying, and the nurse later apologized to me.

Joe's parents eventually got tested, and were then allowed to visit him. That was terribly sad, especially when Joe's mom kept asking why he wasn't answering her. They really, truly, did not get what was happening. And I really couldn't blame them for that.

There were many meetings throughout the day with various specialists. The social worker from ICU would sit with my sister and me at all of these meetings, and would ask questions that I couldn't think of at the time.

I gave permission for them to try every thing they asked permission for. Every time we would meet with a new specialist my sister would ask him (it was always a man) if he thought Joe would make it. Only one doctor said he had seen people in worse condition make it back. Only one.

Meanwhile, my mother was still in Europe, but was going to be home the following day. I hadn't spoken to her since Joe had gone into the hospital, and finally, late in the day, she was patched through to a hospital phone.

As soon as I heard her voice, I lost it completely.

me: Mom, I don't think he's going to make it!
mom: He's going to be fine, I'm sure of it.
me: But what if he's not?
mom: Then I'll quit my job and stay home with the boys, and you'll go back to work.
me: ok. Please come home.

(Of course, after Joe died, my mom said she really didn't think he would die, and the thought of staying home with my kids was too depressing, so I'd better find day care, but that's a story for a different day :O) )

That night my sister and I playfully tortured Joe. First we watched American Idol in his room, and told him everything that was going on. At one point the nurse asked us if Joe was a fan of the show, and we had to tell her that he hated it. She gave us quite the look.

To make up for it, we watched the Red Sox game after Idol. We were trying to do play by play announcements, but kept screwing up. We imagined that Joe was saying to himself, "Will they please shut the fuck up!" This made us do it more of course.

Finally my sister said she had to get back to my house. Jrowe and Mark were watching Jacob, and she needed to relieve them. I didn't want her to go, but I understood.

The night nurse encouraged me to get some rest too. They set me up in a little room off of the ICU waiting room. There was a cot with a pillow and blanket.

I was awakened twice. The first time was at about midnight. Two doctors were knocking on my door. They were going to try some procedure, and they needed me to sign permission for them to do so. It took me a while to fall back asleep because I was so anxious, but finally I did.

Until the 2 am knocking started. The same two doctors were back, and they looked really upset. I sat straight up and asked them what was wrong. Dr. J told me that Joe's oxygen levels were horribly low, and the only thing they could think of to make the levels improve was to turn him over. But he had so many IV's in him, turning him over was very risky. If he lost any of the IV's.... so they wanted me to say my goodbyes to him, just in case.

I couldn't believe it. I begged them to save Joe. I told them that I was only 29 years old, that we had a baby at home, that I was pregnant. I told them that they were not allowed to let him die. They told me that they would try everything they could, but just in case, they wanted me to have a few minutes alone with Joe.

Before I went into Joe's room, the nurse asked me if I wanted her to call the hospital's rabbi. I said yes. She asked me if I wanted her to call anyone else. I said Mel.

I then went in to see Joe. I told him that I loved him more than anything, and that I needed him here with me. I told him that he needed to fight with everything he had in him. That he could not leave us. I reminded him that he wanted to teach Jacob how to hit a baseball, how to ride a bike, how to do so many things. He needed to fight. He couldn't leave.

The doctors came in and told me that it was time. I went into the waiting room and sobbed. I called Kristen on the phone, and told her that Joe was about to die.

The rabbi found me, sitting by myself in the dark, sobbing. He tried to console me, but it wasn't doing any good. Mel arrived and put her hand on my back. My brother, his wife, and my step-father arrived. No one spoke. We just waited.

Finally the doctors came in and said the procedure was successful. I was allowed to see Joe again.

I went in to find him now lying on his stomach. I wrapped my arms around him and told him I was so proud of him. I pulled a chair up next to him, put my head on his back, draped my arm around his side, and fell fast asleep.

-b