How do I know?
Because, for the first time in my life, I looked death RIGHT IN THE EYES. And it had materialized itself behind the eyes of my baby sister.
Princess is only 6 years old (you can read her profile at the bottom of the 'My Family' tab above). For the past two days she has been fighting croup. Nothing serious. Just a little croup. Our whole family has fought with the croup which seems to strike one of us every other year or so. Just keep a humidifier near by, keep liquids down the inflicted, and get them to cough up the mucus.
So, after two days of fighting it with Princess, she seemed to finally be clearing up and on the mend.
This morning however, all of that went down on a landslide.
At roughly 7:30am on Thanksgiving morning, my mom was giving her another breathing treatment. As my sister was inhaling, her loose tooth broke off and lodged in her throat. But what was shocking is that she instantly went into a seizure: jerking, shaking, eyes roll to the back of the head, tongue glued to the roof of the mouth.
Then....she went limp. Unconscious. She turned blue....a sickly sort of pale blue. The sort of blue that I have seen in wild animals that have drowned or suffocated to death. DEATHLY BLUE. That is when it hit me: she could actually die....she could be already dead.
"YHVH ABBA FATHER....have mercy...." I prayed allowed.
My dad panicked and began to give her mouth to mouth resuscitation, not understanding that the tooth was obstructing the airway.
My mother, having already called the ambulance, took Princess and was able to remove the tooth.
At this time, I was holding Princess' hand, talking to her, trying to get her to come back to life. I put my right hand over her chest, trying to transfer my energy over to her.
She suddenly snapped her head up and looked me in the eyes as the tooth finally became dislodged. That....that is when I looked death in the eyes. It was as if her soul had become distant....that it was barely there.....that it was struggling to stay in her body. It was as if she had become a wraith: a body without a soul, just living to live, and barely that.
The expression in her eyes was mixed with the fight to live and the will to die, as if asking "Do I suffer on? Or just give up?"
No horror movie that I have ever seen has duplicated such a look. This look I believe will forever give me nightmares.
For a moment, it seemed that she came back to her body, and she recognized me looking into her eyes. That's when she gripped my hand with an iron grasp. Her brief expression then was one that said "Kathryn.....Help....me...." and then her eyes rolled to the back of her head again as she struggled to force her lungs to breath in precious oxygen.
My dad had a small oxygen tank at this point (usually used for welding, but in an emergency like this....), and he opened the nozzle to let the oxygen flow.
Princess grabbed the bottle, desperate for the life giving contents that flowed across her face.
In the meantime, my mother tossed a jacket and shoes on, grabbed her cell phone, then picked up Princess and ordered my dad to go start the vehicle: they were going to meet the ambulance.
In the rush of things, I threw some extra clothes for both my mom and Princess into a bag.
My mom took the bag and Princess out to the vehicle. As my mom was climbing in, she paused and silently mouthed 2 words to me: "CALL PEOPLE"
Call the prayer warriors.
I watched as they sped away to meet the ambulance, then I went back into the house. The minute I closed the door behind me, I fell to the floor, unable to stand a moment longer, and wept uncontrollably for about a minute. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Princess' eyes looking back at me: the wraith eyes of death saying "Why give back what's easy to take?"
Finally, I pulled myself together, not wanting any of the other kids to see me like this.
I went to the kitchen and washed a bunch of dishes until my dad called: "She's on the ambulance, they are on their way, but I locked myself out of the vehicle! I need the spare keys!"
Well, to shorten this part of the story, it took us about 30 minutes, but I located the spare keys and my dad was on his way to the hospital.
It was over an hour before I got another update. I was just walking around the house like a zombie, cleaning random things, fixing breakfast and starting bread, when my mom called "They are med-flighting her to the city. Pack your dad and me some clothes."
I sat down at first, stunned that she would have to be med-flighted. But as soon as I hung up, I kicked into gear and started handing out jobs for the kids to do, certain overnight objects they needed to find and bring to me, and I started packing.
By the time mom and dad had gotten back to the house, I had stuffed the kitchen sink into ONE bag.
My mother started gathering up more stuff while I talked to a friend who had come over to give us the keys to her house in the city where we could stay if need be.
After my mother had finished packing another kitchen sink, my dad decided to stay at the house while my mom and my grandmother decided to go to the city. They asked if I wanted to go. I said YES, even though I felt like I was abandoning the others.
So, off we went. We drove 2 hours to get to the city and arrived at the hospital where Princess was at.
We made it to her room and found her under sedation with tubes and wires poking in and out of her body in all directions.
I confess with much humiliation that my vision blacked out, my stomach turned, I broke into a sweat, and I nearly passed out. Thank God for the nice cooshy chair that my mother willingly gave up for me to sit in. The floor looked too hard to fall down on....and that would have been beyond humiliating if I would have fallen to the floor.
I reached over to hold Princess' hand and, to my surprise, as soon as our skin touched, she twitched and her hand latched onto mine. Her pulse, which was at 132, lowered to 125. Her breathing also became more at ease.
Every time I would remove my hand, her pulse would go back up. She knew I was there, even though she was knocked out.
About 6 hours later, the doctors decided to remove the tubes. So they brought Princess out of sedation.
It was SO relieving to see her bright blue eyes flicker open and look...well....alive, again. They looked around curiously, though the haze of sedation still lingered on them.
About 30 minutes passed before the nurses finally removed the tube. Princess listened so well to the kind nurses commands and never once questioned their motives.
A few minutes passed before she uttered in a hoarse, hushed, but audible voice "Kathryn!" and gripped my hand.
I would have broke into tears then if there wouldn't have been 5 nurses in the room that all laughed at her happy exclamation.
A few more hours passed. She drank some water, went to the bathroom, coughed up more mucus, and started asking questions, wanted to get dressed, and wanted to go home.
Needless to say, she is doing better now. She seems to be on the mend.
The doctors are observing her closely and they are still trying to figure out why she had a seizure.
We don't know when they will release her to go home, but she insists at the moment that she is "JUST FINE!" and "wants to visit home".
I will try to post some updates later and some photos in the future.
In the meantime, I am going to try and get some rest....though I am afraid that, if I close my eyes, Death will stare back at me with those pale, distant, soul-less eyes once again.
I must remember the encouraging words that a friend gave me "Be that shining light on a hill...." but it is oh so hard to remember them when you have something so mysterious and terrifying staring you right into the eyes saying "Now....who will be next?"
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