Journal of a Living Lady #242
Nancy White
Kelly
The hostess hesitantly approached our
dining table with a wrinkled brow. She interrupted the jovial conversation I
was having with a good friend.
“Would either one of you be Nancy
Kelly?
I instinctively smiled and nodded. The
grin evaporated quickly as reality sunk into my skull. This had to be an
emergency. Nobody, except Buddy, knew even what town I was in. To find me at
this new little restaurant took some serious sleuthing.
My heart pounded as I made my way
through the patrons to the telephone near the front.
“Hello,” I said tentatively.
“Nanny,” Buddy replied. “I don’t want to scare you, but Charlie just
called from his school. Tori took the baby to the doctor and they sent her
immediately to the hospital. Something about the heart.”
“I’ll be right home,” I said.
My waiting friend was very
understanding when I told her I needed to leave. As I fumbled through my purse for
some money, she waved me on.
“On me,” she said. I didn’t argue. We
exchanged perfunctory hugs.
Buddy was waiting as I drove into the
driveway. Within minutes we were on our way to the hospital which is more than
an hour away.
Our new grandson was in trouble. My
mind wandered back 25 years. When Charlie was six weeks old, the pediatrician
discovered a heart defect on a routine office visit. We rivaled a NASCAR entry
as Buddy and I drove Charlie to a renowned children’s hospital in
It turned out that Charlie had a
ventricular septal defect which had the possibility of being very serious. It
is commonly referred to as a hole in the heart. The cardiologist took a wait and
see approach. In a few weeks time, the defect healed and Charlie had no further
problem.
An eerie sense of dejavu enveloped
Buddy and me as we sped to the hospital to see about Micah. I punched in number
after number into the cell phone. The
hospital. Charlie’s home. Tori’s cell number. The in-law’s phone number in
Buddy circled the full
hospital parking lot. Finally someone pulled out. Our front car doors slammed
simultaneously as we raced toward the glassed entrance. Though I often have
difficulty walking because of the cancer, I found myself actually out-pacing
Buddy.
The pediatric floor was bustling. We
hurried into the room 380 and found Tori sitting alone in the rocking chair. No
Micah. She said the nurses had him in the treatment room. Understandably they
had asked her to leave. The necessary aggressive activity with the baby would
frighten any new mother.
My now deceased mother always cut to
the chase when the occasion required it. That day I was my mother.
“Give me the whole story,” I said
breathlessly. “Start from the beginning.”
Tori explained that as she was playing
with Micah early in the day, she had an uncanny sense that something wasn’t
quite right. She hesitated calling the pediatrician with nothing more to tell
him, but her instinct won out.
Tori’s intuition was right. The doctor
heard a heart murmur and sent Tori and baby Micah straight to the hospital.
After numerous tests, the conclusion was that Micah had an atrioventricular septal
defect.
We were there when the cardiologist
explained his condition. It could be serious, but probably is not. Like
Charlie’s case, it is a matter of waiting and watching. Charlie suggested that
we gather around the bed and pray that Micah’s outcome would also be favorable.
We did.
Today is the baby’s fifth day in the
hospital. To be no larger than a big bag of sugar, he sure has caused excitement
in this family.
No doubt this will be one of those
memorable stories that gets told and retold many times during his life, perhaps
slightly exaggerated along the way. Sort of like the little Dutch boy who put
his finger in the dike saving his whole village.
I will tell Micah that a guardian angel
protected his speeding paternal grandparents over the snowy mountains and then plugged
the hole in his tiny heart with a divine finger.
__________
