Groundhog Day: Life of a parent with a kid in the hospital

Can I talk about one of the worst times in my life for a minute, that I’m still in the middle of? I want to preface this by saying that this is not to diminish the experiences of anyone else involved and especially the two kids that this has impacted the most. This is only my experience as a mom. The experiences, thoughts and feelings I had during the first month. That’s not possible without going back to the day it started.

September 8, 2023 was a normal sunny Friday that I worked. I had finished one job and was heading to the second for the day, but first had an errand to run. Being the beginning of the school year, I had to pick up school supplies for the kids. I drove to my boyfriend’s house to drop off my vehicle because we were going together. To get to his place you turn off of Kanaka way on to 240th in Maple Ridge. First thing that I noticed when turning right was the road a few blocks up was closed and there were several emergency vehicles. At least 2 fire trucks, 3 ambulance and many police cars. As planned, I dropped of my van and we headed to pick up the supplies. While he drove, I checked a Facebook group for the neighborhood to see if anyone knew what was going on. I read there had been a really bad accident between an SUV and a motorcycle. The passengers of the motorcycle were badly injured. Sarah had moved to that area the week before, so of course my mom brain worried it was her and her boyfriend but I have a tendency to catastrophize and because it is motorcycle season, I tried to put it out of my head. We got our school supplies and headed back to the house because I still had a second job to get to before my day was done. The road closure barricade had been moved all the way to Kanaka way, blocking our way back to his house and to my van. He knew of a little loop around through a parking lot that would get us past the barricade and seeing as we were only going a block and not near the accident, we didn’t see the problem. Got to my van and I was off to the next job. I was at the second job just trying to get things done when my phone rang.

It was Fraser Health. My first thought was that they were calling me because Elizabeth was in grade 7 and I hadn’t gotten her grade 6 immunizations yet and I would just set up the appointment while I had them on the phone. The women on the phone asked to speak to Dione and I said "speaking." She asked if anyone had called me yet and I was confused but said no. She said “so, no one has told you yet that your daughter is in Royal Columbian?” For ½ a second, I was confused because my brain was still on Elizabeth and why would she be at the hospital but in the other ½ second, I knew. “Accident on 240th?” I asked and she was confused and said “pardon me?” I repeated myself and she paused and yes “Yes I think so.” I dropped to my knees and tried to hold it together long enough to hear the rest of what she had to say. She told me that I needed to get to the E.R immediately and that I should not drive myself. She asked if I had a way to do that and when I said I did she said she’d see me soon and hung up. Several weeks before Sarah was in another accident but she was the one that called me. Even then I wanted to cry because of how dangerous and scary that is but I held it together because she wasn’t badly hurt and I went in to mom mode. This time it was the hospital calling because for some awful reason she couldn’t. I knelt there on the cement crying with my head on the ground thinking this was it. This was going to be the time I lost her and terrified I was already too late or if not that I wasn’t going to make it in time. My crisis focus set in and I realized that Matthew was at kids’ club and I wasn’t going to be able to pick him up, so my first call was to Josie. She answered the phone chuckling and my thought was she thought I was about to say one or both the kids wanted to come over for a sleep over. I did my best to pull my shit together and ask if she could go pick Matthew up at kids’ club because I had to get to the hospital because Sarah was in an accident. I could barely get the words out because saying them meant it was real. She said of course and asked if Elizabeth should get there too and I said yes. My next call was to my boyfriend which there was no answer so I tried again and got the machine so I called his son’s phone. He answered and in the most normal voice I could muster I asked to talk to his dad. He had tried to call me back but was also getting my machine. I very briefly explained what happened and he was on his way. I got up off the ground wiped my face to try to look normal and went to look for my boss to tell her I had to leave. She was talking to someone and I was going to wait but honestly didn’t want both of them looking at me while I was waiting to talk to her because I was sure my eyes were really red. I went and sat on the steps outside my phone rang it was Elizabeth and I told her she had to go to Josie’s. She asked why in her sassy way and told me if she had to break the plans, she already had I should tell her why. I told her I just needed her to and I thought by the tone in my voice she knew not to ask anymore. I think it was a combination of that and that she’d heard about the accident already. Then I called my mom. Again, couldn’t get the words out. I’m not entirely sure of what I said but I know I called her mommy at one point through my tears, that I was scared I was going to lose her and that they should also get to the hospital. Stephen called me and it was much the same. I know one of the first things he said was that he was going to knock that kids out and my response was “I don’t even know if he’s alive” the tone of the conversation changed after that. At some point I called Nate thinking that he was at home. Poor kid was still at work when I dropped the bomb on him. Tyler called me and I asked him if Nate had called him. He hadn’t he was calling to ask if he could have Zach’s birthday party in the back yard. I told him what was going on. I honestly don’t remember much else about the conversation besides that and saying yes to the party. Whoever it was that my boss was talking to and my boss came outside and when she saw my face, she knew something was wrong. It had only been 10 minutes and I’d already had to say she’d been in an accident more times than any parent should have to. I was crying again and she hugged me and asked if she could pray for me and Sarah which she did. She stayed with me and even helped me laugh a little until my boyfriend arrived.

The drive to the hospital felt impossibly long. I just wanted to get there, I just wanted to see her and tell her that I loved her. Getting on to the Pitt River Bridge Shawna texted me “Oh hey I love you”. I said that I was not ok, heading to RCH, and that Sarah had been in an accident. She knew because Stephen had called her. It had been about an hour since the first call and every long second counted. When we finally got to emergency, I got in line to talk to someone at the counter. The line was really long and I wasn’t needing medical attention so I asked the security how to get into the back because my daughter was back there. He told me to wait in line. I waited maybe another minute and then went and asked the girl at the help desk. Again, she told me I was in the right spot but to just go up to the counter and ask to be let in. The line was really long and I didn’t want people mad that I was jumping the line. Why I was concerned about that in that moment, I have no clue. I asked the help desk girl if she could come up with me so people could see I wasn’t trying to budge and she did. They let me in, but now were. There is a huge nurse’s station desk that I walked up to with a sign that said to go to the other side. I stood at the desk and impatiently waited for someone to notice that I was there all the while thinking they are wasting time, I'm going to miss her. A nurse finally asked if I needed help and I told her that my daughter Sarah Mingo was here somewhere and that I was told that I needed to get to the hospital. She called someone and said that someone would come and get me. My heart sunk. Any other time we’d been in the hospital they’d directed me to which curtain to look behind to find her so I thought that they were coming out to get me because I was too late so they wanted to prepare me before taking me to her. It was the social worker that had called me that came to meet us at the desk. She said, as we walked, that they were about to move Sarah to the ICU but they would let me see her for a minute. It was going to take time to get her set up once in the ICU so it could be quite a while before I got to see her again. The big double doors to the trauma room opened and she was the first thing I saw. Her tiny little body lying unconscious on a gurney. She was in a hospital gown so I assumed they must have cut her clothes off. She had a stiff neck brace on and was intubated. I could he scratches all over her neck and looked like some peaking out of the gown on her side. The doctor told me she’d suffered a severe brain trauma, a significant injury to her arm that was going to need surgery, she wasn’t breathing on her own and that she was in a coma, but what I saw was her face was almost untouched, and she looked like she was sleeping. It was a lot of information to get and try to retain. All I could do was rub her head and kiss her and tell her I was there and how much I loved her. I said to her “don’t you dare leave me”, and they said they had to move her. I stood up and on the other side of the trifold partition I could see Max. I asked if it was him and if I could talk to him. He was also unconscious and in a neck brace. His right eye was so swollen it looked like he had a gold ball stuffed under it. His clothes had been cut off also and he was in a gown but his wasn’t all the way up. There was a large bandage covering his right shoulder. I knew his mom wasn’t there and it was unclear if she’d been contacted so I wanted him to know he wasn’t alone. I leaned down and told him I was there. That my whole family would be there for him too. I thanked him for making Sarah so happy and told him he had to get better so he could keep making her happy. When I walked away the social worked asked me if I knew Max’s mom and what kind of relationship they had. I didn’t know much, only that Sarah had told me they were strained. They had reached her and she was trying to catch a ferry to get to the hospital from the island. I was handed a large heavy black back pack and the social worker walked us out of the trauma room. I wasn’t sure where we were going but she was bringing us somewhere to talk.

She brought us to the ICU waiting room on the second floor. She told me it would be a minimum of 45 minutes before I’d get to see Sarah again because they would have to get her hooked up to all the machines she was needing and to make her kind of comfortable. She apologized that all of this was happening. She asked me if Sarah had any siblings. I said “yes, a lot”. She then said the absolute worst thing she could have to me. “They need to get here”. This to me said that they didn’t expect Sarah to make it through the night. She offered to go get me some water and that was the last time I saw her. Pretty sure I was crying again when Shawna walked in. Right away she told me it was going to be ok. I repeated the social workers words, “they said the siblings had to get here”. I think that hit her the same way it hit me. At some point my parents got there and we started trying to figure out how to get everyone to the hospital. I started crying again because I hadn’t told Joe what going on because he was home alone and I didn’t want him to be alone when he was told. Papa was going to go get the kids in Maple Ridge, Tyler was going to get Gary, Ashley and Nate, and Shawna got a plane ticket for Stephen. They were all coming. That first night family took up almost the entire waiting room. My parents, boyfriend, kids (including bonus kids), Shawna, two of my nieces and one of their boyfriends. I think there were more than that too but the first several days of sitting in that waiting room have all blurred together. When I got to see her again, she was hooked up to all kinds of machines. IV’s and wires coming out of everywhere. There was my beautiful baby girl being kept alive by machines. I watched her chest rise and fall in a very mechanical way and the numbers on the monitor showing her low heart rate. I kept thinking that even like this she was so beautiful and she’d be happy to know that her eyebrows were on point and her nails looked great. It was all so surreal. Even now it is and its all so hard to believe it happened. Two by two people went in to see her. Different reactions from different people. Some would come out crying others stone faced and some couldn't face going in at all. Some went in laughing (how they were coping) but the reality of seeing her brought them to tears. There was so much support and so much love for this baby girl that thought no one cared and I needed her to wake up and see that.

There are so many things that went through my head those first nights. People coming to me and saying that everything was going to be fine and that she was going to pull out of this was probably the thing that bothered me the most. I didn’t want to hear about anyone’s belief in miracles or Gods plan or their feelings that everything was going to be ok or that she is a fighter. I know that everyone was coping and finding comfort in their own ways and trying to comfort me but it wasn’t. The truth for me was, of course I hoped for all of those things, of course I wanted her to be ok and to fight, but the reality was that it could have just as easily not been ok, or been Gods plan to take her, and my little fighter had also wanted to leave this world so many times that maybe she wouldn’t want to fight anymore. I wasn’t being negative I was trying to prepare myself that I may lose my daughter and all the things that were going to have to happen if that was the outcome. I was going to have to keep my shit together because all the kids were going to need me. My time to fall apart was with my safe people. I’d cry to Shawna or at night with my guy and say all my worst fears out loud. It helped to say them instead of holding it all in. It helped to say them to someone that was supportive and knew that I wasn’t wrong in preparing myself. It helped to not let all those feeling out when I was alone in my van crying hysterically, which I was also doing. The first few nights I’d cry so hard and try to not disturb anyone else’s sleep that I cupped my hands under my face to catch all the snot. I didn’t want to keep blowing my nose, or at least not until I was cried out. Having the amount of support I have has been incredible but, some of the tears needed to come out alone. As important as it was to have someone to talk to some of those thoughts needed to run free so I knew what I was afraid of. On those first few nights it was everything.

For the first several weeks of being there it seemed like everyday there was more bad news. She made it through the night but the type of brain injury she’d sustained was inoperable and we’d have to wait and see if she’d wake up, if she’d be able to breath on her own, if she’d able to swallow or talk or walk. When the nurse told me all that the first morning I almost fainted. I couldn’t spend a lot of time in the room with her. Seeing her like that was terrifying. She was so small, so frail, so broken and so young. I could help but wondering if this was going to be her life. I kept thinking of this stupid made for TV movie I’d seen in my teens, where a woman was in an accident when she was a teen and, in a coma, and when she finally woke up, it something like, 25 years later. Was that going to be Sarah? Was she going to wake up one day and be in her 40’s. I cried to myself one night when I realized that if this was it for her my life would also stop. Would I ever be able to go away for a weekend again or on any trip. I felt like a horrible mom for thinking that but then the thought that there would be no way I’d make it to her every day. For one reason or another there would be days I wasn’t there and she wouldn’t even know which just brought more tears. I sat in the driveway sobbing knowing that if this was as far as thing went, I would fail her at some point because if I didn’t, I’d be robbing the other kids of camping trips and summer vacations or just somewhat of a normal life. All I could do for now was keep going because it had only been days. I would spend every day in the hospital because the first month was the most crucial, so I’d know more after that. I wanted to spend every minute I could with her and I’d feel so guilty that I didn’t just sit at her bedside all day and night. I’d be in there for 5 minutes and get dizzy and nauseous so I’d go to the waiting room. That would last for hours. Once it would let up, I’d go back in and start all over again. I was in the waiting room from first thing in the morning until the night time because if anything happened, I wanted to be close by. I’d leave at night and others would sleep in the waiting room so that if something happened through the night, she’d have someone there with her. Thank you to Shawna, Aubrey, Jacob, Shannon, Elijah, Nate, Tyler, Lucy and my guy for pulling night shifts. So many visitors came to support Sarah and me while she was in the ICU. I did my best to prepare each new person for what they were walking into and to update them on the latest of the endless bad news. The bad news continued daily, like when we found out that her left hand, the hand wed all been holding, was broken in three places. She had a collapsed lung and a lung infection that turned into pneumonia and a UTI. Shout out to the nurse that looked into it for me after I’d already had asked the nurse the day before that didn’t do anything. The surgery she had first was to clean and repair her arm. Her arm was very dirty from landing in the field and they were afraid of infection. The plastic surgeon had to prepare me for the worst. She thought the wound was potentially down to Sarah’s bone and they were going to have to repair the muscle all the way through and the tendons. The wound was very close to the artery in her arm and if an accident happened and the artery was cut and they couldn’t stop the bleeding they would have to amputate her arm, because of course that was the worst case for fuck sake. There was a very small chance of that but a chance none the less. The second time she went for surgery was to clean her arm again, take a skin graph from her leg for her arm and to realign the bones in her left hand. She ended up with 6 rods sticking out of her knuckles. Then on day 8 she opened her eyes!

She spent that day still intubated but she was moving more. She was moving her legs around. She even tried to pull tubes out with her toes. If you squeezed her hand, she would squeeze it back and she was raising her left arm. All encouraging signs. Something felt really off to me though. I’d been listening to the other ICU families talking about their people waking up. How he or she would look at them and blink or squeeze a hand once for yes twice for no while they were still intubated. Sarah wasn’t doing that. She wasn’t following directions and she wasn’t actually looking at one. When they extubated her the next day it was the same. She had no expression on her face. There was no recognition of people or attempts to communicate in any way. She was unresponsive and for me this was worse than the coma. The blank stare on the beautiful face of my daughter that was not there. I was angry and jealous that the other ICU patients just woke up and she was unresponsive. She’d opened her eyes, but now there was a possibility that this would be as far as her recovery would go. I was terrified that I’d be taking this version of Sarah home to have to have round the clock care for the rest of her life. My heart hurt so much that this might be it for her and this was not fair, she has too much life to live to stop here. The only sign that she was feeling anything was her heart rate and blood pressure. I’d watch the numbers go so high I was worried she was going to have a heart attack and then drop so low that she was barely alive all while she lay there unresponsive. There was cloth after cloth of wiping away the sweat from her face. There was so much that her hair was always soaked. I was having to ask the nurses to please give her pain meds because this was clear to me that she was responding this way because of pain. I could see when the meds would take effect because she would cross her feet, close her eyes and sleep and the number would all return to normal. What was happening to her is called thyroid storming and its fatal if left untreated because it can cause heart failure. Like fuck…was the bad news ever going to end. This was the first time I left the hospital early. It was around 4pm. I was so sick, I was worried I was going to throw up right there in the waiting room. So, I said I was going to go home to make dinner. I cried the whole drive back and then pulled into the parking lot of Michael’s. I needed a distraction and I’d been working on a gift and needed some materials for it. Once I got back on the van I drove behind the stores because here came the tears again. I pulled over and started screaming. Screaming why at God and that he’d better not take her. This wasn’t fair. She’s been through enough and leave her alone. It was that day I checked out. I couldn’t feel this raw anymore and it all just shut off. This was yet another thing that was threatening to take my baby from me and I wasn’t going to be able to function if I let the weight of that drown me. The same level of emotions I had been feeling wasn’t there after that. There was still a felt sense in my body. The second I get to the hospital, even still, I’m dizzy. It feels like the world is move in and out around me. Sometimes it closes in so much I feel like I’m going to fall down and I need to hold the wall. That and a lack of appetite while I’m there. Then day 19 happened!

Living in the Groundhog Day that I was in I arrived in the ICU on the morning of September 27. Been there for awhile when her nurse casually said to me “Physio said she said her name this morning, twice”. I got right into her face and asked is she could say Sarah. She mumbled something, I asked if she could say mom or Max and again, she mumbled. This was the first sounds she’s made in weeks. The first clear words she said was “Ow” I repeated that and she said it again followed by “Help me” and “hand”. It was so terrible that the first thing she was saying was about pain but she was talking and this was huge! She kept talking through the day. She wasn’t making much sense and at one point asked me to call my old phone number but she was talking!!! Being intubated has done some damage to her throat so she was very quiet but that was just something else that was going to take time to heal. It took her a couple more days to start tracking with her eyes. She said she could see us but we’d have to position ourselves in front of her. After about 3 days of talking her nurse, Pete (he was great), said to Sarah “remember we look at people when we’re talking to them” and she moved her eyes to look at me! I just said “hi baby”. Over the next week she was very quiet, very confused, very funny and very young. She was so hard to hear at times that I almost had to have my ear right against her mouth, but each day she got a little louder. She remembered her boyfriend which was a good sign but she didn’t quite know when we were or who she was in a relationship with. She had some trouble with names of people she’d known all her life and then remembered people she hadn’t seen in years. She could retain that she’d been in an accident but would ask about injuries over and over because short term memory was a struggle. The confusion did lead to some humor. She was super focused on eating, which she couldn’t because the speech pathologist had to test her swallowing first. She kept asking people to sneak her food and said Jacob had given her a bite of a hot dog already so she could swallow. Anything anyone said that she didn’t like would get a “shh shh shh shh” and she was determined to drive the nurses crazy until she let her eat by raising her hand to speak and constantly saying “excuse me when can I eat”. My favorite part so far is she has seemed so much like when she was a little girl. She’s had so much love for everyone. She’s so happy to see every face and they all get I love yous from her in her sweet little voice. I love you mommy from my 18 year old is the best thing I’ve ever heard!

Today is day 37, or as the rest of the world calls it October 15. Sarah has come so, so far. She’s awake, talking, walking mostly unassisted. Longer walks we take the wheel chair because she does get tired quickly. She has the craziest appetite for someone so petite. She still has a ways to go. She is gaining mobility in her left hand. The rods were taken out last week and since then she is able to straighten her hand. She struggles to make a fist because it hurts her knuckles and I watch her hand shake while she tried to make it into a fist under its own strength. She is able to grab items like her drink or fork but there is a weakness in her hand. Her hand shakes often and she has once dropped her drink. Walking is coming along, even though she’s wobblily. She has full use of her right hand but none of her right arm. She can put an item in her right hand and use her left arm to rise her right arm. Doctor said that the nerves that control her arm may have been damaged and they couldn’t see it in the MRI because she was too swollen. Haven’t heard what the plan is for that. She is doing exercises for her short term memory but for now the step after the hospital is a live in brain rehab centre. Unsure how long that will be for, and after that she will be coming home for me to care for. She is shocking the doctors daily with her progress. None of this is going to be quick and I’m still terrified and overly stressed but she’s here, she’s alive and she’s going to be able to have a life! This has been probably the most difficult thing I have ever faced as a mom and, even though the hardest part is over we are far from the finish line. It has been such a blessing to see that in the absolutely darkest part of it so many people stepped up to be there to support me, Sarah and our family and that they are continuing to do so. Until this, I honestly didn’t realize so many people cared. September 8, 2023 changed a lot of lives and its my intention that it will be for the better. My relationship with Sarah is better than it’s ever been. Once she comes home, she’ll be lucky if I let her out of my sight. I’ve almost lost that little girl too many times, and I think I might need to permanently attached her to a tracker, a life jacket and bubble wrap. Hug your kids and tell them you love them every chance you get because you never know if it’s the last time.