| Biographical Non-Fiction posted August 5, 2013 | Chapters: |
...8 9 -10- 11... 
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Life takes an unexpected and unwelcome turn
A chapter in the book Chasing the Elusive Dream
Into Every Life Some Rain Must Fall
by BethShelby
Death was no stranger to us by our third year into marriage. Since Evan and I had been married, I'd lost both of my paternal grandparents.
When Grandma died, she was the first person I'd lost who was really close. She was seventy-three and had suffered a stroke two years earlier. Grandpa, who was ten years older, lived to be eighty-five and succumbed to pneumonia after breaking a hip. I grieved for them, because as a child I practically lived at their house. Still, I was somewhat prepared, because they were older and not in good health. Evan never knew any of his grandparents, but several aunts and uncles died during those first years.
Shortly after we moved into our new house, a salesman came by and talked us into buying cemetery lots in a beautifully landscaped garden setting. The bronze markers all lay flat against the ground and flowers bloom year round. It sounded idyllic compared to some of the country graveyards we'd visited recently, and we'd not yet learned to say "no" to high-pressure sales tactics. After he left, we had byer's remorse. We were young, and with a baby on the way, the $40 extra per month could be put to better use. We begged to be released from the sale, but the contract seemed ironclad.
My pregnancy went smoothly. I only had one episode of morning sickness, which I think was really stomach flu. My doctor told me he didn't want me gaining over twenty pounds, so I stayed on a low-calorie diet the whole nine months. My body didn't understand such restrictions, and neither did I.
"Darn it. I thought I was going to be allowed to eat for two," I complained. "Being pregnant isn't fun. I don't even get to indulge in any weird cravings."
When the baby was a little over a week late, the nesting instinct I'd heard women get, happened. I had a sudden burst of energy, and I went on a housecleaning binge. At three a.m. the next morning, I lost the mucus plug and started having contractions. Not knowing any better, we thought we might not make it to the hospital on time. Boy, were we wrong. Many hours of pain lay ahead.
I'd never been around anyone in labor, but I was determined not to scream like women did on the TV shows. The nurse gave me a hand-held contraption to breathe into when the pains got hard. I used it constantly until my head felt like a tilt-a-whirl, and I vomited green gall into a bedpan. Still I didn't scream, but I did groan a lot. Evan stood by me holding my hand and looking worried. You'd have thought every contraction was grinding his gut instead of mine. About five that evening, our little girl was born. She weighed 8'2" and seemed perfect in every way. We named her Susan Renee, since Evan couldn't remember a single cousin with those names. Two days later, we took her home.
We were like kids with a new toy. Life was good in spite of the cloth diapers and lack of a clothes dryer. We had a floor furnace, and it was February, so drying diapers was no big problem. She developed normally and seldom cried. When we brought her in for her checkup, our pediatrician declared her to be a healthy baby.
At her two-month checkup, Dr. Miller said she was in perfect health and told me it was time to start her DPT vaccinations. "Sometimes this shot makes them a little irritable, or sleepy," he warned. "She may even run a low grade temperature. If she does, give her a little infant Tylenol. The directions are on the bottle. We'll see you again in a month. Stop by the front desk and get an appointment."
On the way home, Susan managed to smile and even laugh out loud a few times. I had hoped there would be no symptoms, but two hours after the injection, she started to fret. She ran a fever during the night, but slept most of the day. When she awoke, she screamed and refused to take any nourishment. I called the doctor several times, and he assured me it was normal. That night she began screaming and bending her body backwards. We insisted the doctor see her, so he met us at the clinic.
After checking her, Dr. Miller said, "This seems more serious than I thought. We need to admit her to the hospital." I stayed by her side all night, as she alternated between long naps and screaming fits. The next day, the doctor told me they needed to do a spinal tap. When they took her away, I could still hear her screams. When they brought her back to the room, she was sleeping. She had a tube running from her nose and a drip was attached to her tiny arm. The doctor told me he had sedated her.
Mom and Dad drove the sixty miles to be with us that night. Evan and Dad stayed at the hospital so I could go home and rest. Susan slept through the night. The next morning, I went back to the hospital early, after having spent a restless night. She lay still and unmoving. I assumed she was still sedated. Evan was by her side when suddenly she stopped breathing. He raced down the hall and grabbed a nurse. The monitor had already alerted the staff that she was in trouble. Almost immediately a code was called, and the room filled with nurses and aides. They wheeled in a crash cart and started working on her.
I stood watching in muted disbelief as the paddles were put on her chest and over and over again as they tried to resuscitate her. Finally, they gave up and called the time of death. Evan put his arms around me and sobbed. We held each other, but I couldn't cry. It was like I was transported to another dimension where everything moved in slow-motion. I knew I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other and do what had to be done. The doctor came in and told us he'd never expected this to happen, and he was sorry he hadn't been there.
In a trance-like state, I went through the motions of making the necessary phone calls. Then, Evan and I went to the funeral home to make arrangements. People came to comfort us, and I acknowledged them in a daze. For me, it was surreal. I never once was able to cry in public. I'm sure people thought me unfeeling. I realized I don't deal with grief in a normal way. When Evan and I were alone, I could let my guard down and express my grief. In public, I turned to stone. I realized then, I'd reacted the same when my grandparents died.
We had the funeral two days later. We used one of the four cemetery lots, for which we'd tried to cancel the contract. After the autopsy, Susan's final diagnosis was encephalitis, which we would later learn, is present in children who die or suffer brain damage from the whooping cough portion of the vaccine. Even with that dignosis, the doctor refused to admit the vaccine caused her death.
With the funeral over, we decided to go out of town for a few days to grieve in private. In the meantime, friends came to our home and dismantled the nursery. They felt having her bed there would be to painful for us.
On the Dolphin Island, Alabama beach, we walked on the sand dunes, talked and cried in each other's arms. We knew then we wanted more children. We were young. We had to get past this and move on. This open wound would heal, and in time, only a scar would remain. When we left to go back home, I was pregnant again. It would be a while before I realized it.
Sometimes, such an experience can destroy a marriage. In our case, I believe it drew us closer. Another pregnancy would give us new reason to hope for a better tomorrow. We would never forget Susan, but our season of grief wouldn't last forever.
Death was no stranger to us by our third year into marriage. Since Evan and I had been married, I'd lost both of my paternal grandparents.
When Grandma died, she was the first person I'd lost who was really close. She was seventy-three and had suffered a stroke two years earlier. Grandpa, who was ten years older, lived to be eighty-five and succumbed to pneumonia after breaking a hip. I grieved for them, because as a child I practically lived at their house. Still, I was somewhat prepared, because they were older and not in good health. Evan never knew any of his grandparents, but several aunts and uncles died during those first years.
Shortly after we moved into our new house, a salesman came by and talked us into buying cemetery lots in a beautifully landscaped garden setting. The bronze markers all lay flat against the ground and flowers bloom year round. It sounded idyllic compared to some of the country graveyards we'd visited recently, and we'd not yet learned to say "no" to high-pressure sales tactics. After he left, we had byer's remorse. We were young, and with a baby on the way, the $40 extra per month could be put to better use. We begged to be released from the sale, but the contract seemed ironclad.
My pregnancy went smoothly. I only had one episode of morning sickness, which I think was really stomach flu. My doctor told me he didn't want me gaining over twenty pounds, so I stayed on a low-calorie diet the whole nine months. My body didn't understand such restrictions, and neither did I.
"Darn it. I thought I was going to be allowed to eat for two," I complained. "Being pregnant isn't fun. I don't even get to indulge in any weird cravings."
When the baby was a little over a week late, the nesting instinct I'd heard women get, happened. I had a sudden burst of energy, and I went on a housecleaning binge. At three a.m. the next morning, I lost the mucus plug and started having contractions. Not knowing any better, we thought we might not make it to the hospital on time. Boy, were we wrong. Many hours of pain lay ahead.
I'd never been around anyone in labor, but I was determined not to scream like women did on the TV shows. The nurse gave me a hand-held contraption to breathe into when the pains got hard. I used it constantly until my head felt like a tilt-a-whirl, and I vomited green gall into a bedpan. Still I didn't scream, but I did groan a lot. Evan stood by me holding my hand and looking worried. You'd have thought every contraction was grinding his gut instead of mine. About five that evening, our little girl was born. She weighed 8'2" and seemed perfect in every way. We named her Susan Renee, since Evan couldn't remember a single cousin with those names. Two days later, we took her home.
We were like kids with a new toy. Life was good in spite of the cloth diapers and lack of a clothes dryer. We had a floor furnace, and it was February, so drying diapers was no big problem. She developed normally and seldom cried. When we brought her in for her checkup, our pediatrician declared her to be a healthy baby.
At her two-month checkup, Dr. Miller said she was in perfect health and told me it was time to start her DPT vaccinations. "Sometimes this shot makes them a little irritable, or sleepy," he warned. "She may even run a low grade temperature. If she does, give her a little infant Tylenol. The directions are on the bottle. We'll see you again in a month. Stop by the front desk and get an appointment."
On the way home, Susan managed to smile and even laugh out loud a few times. I had hoped there would be no symptoms, but two hours after the injection, she started to fret. She ran a fever during the night, but slept most of the day. When she awoke, she screamed and refused to take any nourishment. I called the doctor several times, and he assured me it was normal. That night she began screaming and bending her body backwards. We insisted the doctor see her, so he met us at the clinic.
After checking her, Dr. Miller said, "This seems more serious than I thought. We need to admit her to the hospital." I stayed by her side all night, as she alternated between long naps and screaming fits. The next day, the doctor told me they needed to do a spinal tap. When they took her away, I could still hear her screams. When they brought her back to the room, she was sleeping. She had a tube running from her nose and a drip was attached to her tiny arm. The doctor told me he had sedated her.
Mom and Dad drove the sixty miles to be with us that night. Evan and Dad stayed at the hospital so I could go home and rest. Susan slept through the night. The next morning, I went back to the hospital early, after having spent a restless night. She lay still and unmoving. I assumed she was still sedated. Evan was by her side when suddenly she stopped breathing. He raced down the hall and grabbed a nurse. The monitor had already alerted the staff that she was in trouble. Almost immediately a code was called, and the room filled with nurses and aides. They wheeled in a crash cart and started working on her.
I stood watching in muted disbelief as the paddles were put on her chest and over and over again as they tried to resuscitate her. Finally, they gave up and called the time of death. Evan put his arms around me and sobbed. We held each other, but I couldn't cry. It was like I was transported to another dimension where everything moved in slow-motion. I knew I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other and do what had to be done. The doctor came in and told us he'd never expected this to happen, and he was sorry he hadn't been there.
In a trance-like state, I went through the motions of making the necessary phone calls. Then, Evan and I went to the funeral home to make arrangements. People came to comfort us, and I acknowledged them in a daze. For me, it was surreal. I never once was able to cry in public. I'm sure people thought me unfeeling. I realized I don't deal with grief in a normal way. When Evan and I were alone, I could let my guard down and express my grief. In public, I turned to stone. I realized then, I'd reacted the same when my grandparents died.
We had the funeral two days later. We used one of the four cemetery lots, for which we'd tried to cancel the contract. After the autopsy, Susan's final diagnosis was encephalitis, which we would later learn, is present in children who die or suffer brain damage from the whooping cough portion of the vaccine. Even with that dignosis, the doctor refused to admit the vaccine caused her death.
With the funeral over, we decided to go out of town for a few days to grieve in private. In the meantime, friends came to our home and dismantled the nursery. They felt having her bed there would be to painful for us.
On the Dolphin Island, Alabama beach, we walked on the sand dunes, talked and cried in each other's arms. We knew then we wanted more children. We were young. We had to get past this and move on. This open wound would heal, and in time, only a scar would remain. When we left to go back home, I was pregnant again. It would be a while before I realized it.
Sometimes, such an experience can destroy a marriage. In our case, I believe it drew us closer. Another pregnancy would give us new reason to hope for a better tomorrow. We would never forget Susan, but our season of grief wouldn't last forever.
When Grandma died, she was the first person I'd lost who was really close. She was seventy-three and had suffered a stroke two years earlier. Grandpa, who was ten years older, lived to be eighty-five and succumbed to pneumonia after breaking a hip. I grieved for them, because as a child I practically lived at their house. Still, I was somewhat prepared, because they were older and not in good health. Evan never knew any of his grandparents, but several aunts and uncles died during those first years.
Shortly after we moved into our new house, a salesman came by and talked us into buying cemetery lots in a beautifully landscaped garden setting. The bronze markers all lay flat against the ground and flowers bloom year round. It sounded idyllic compared to some of the country graveyards we'd visited recently, and we'd not yet learned to say "no" to high-pressure sales tactics. After he left, we had byer's remorse. We were young, and with a baby on the way, the $40 extra per month could be put to better use. We begged to be released from the sale, but the contract seemed ironclad.
My pregnancy went smoothly. I only had one episode of morning sickness, which I think was really stomach flu. My doctor told me he didn't want me gaining over twenty pounds, so I stayed on a low-calorie diet the whole nine months. My body didn't understand such restrictions, and neither did I.
"Darn it. I thought I was going to be allowed to eat for two," I complained. "Being pregnant isn't fun. I don't even get to indulge in any weird cravings."
When the baby was a little over a week late, the nesting instinct I'd heard women get, happened. I had a sudden burst of energy, and I went on a housecleaning binge. At three a.m. the next morning, I lost the mucus plug and started having contractions. Not knowing any better, we thought we might not make it to the hospital on time. Boy, were we wrong. Many hours of pain lay ahead.
I'd never been around anyone in labor, but I was determined not to scream like women did on the TV shows. The nurse gave me a hand-held contraption to breathe into when the pains got hard. I used it constantly until my head felt like a tilt-a-whirl, and I vomited green gall into a bedpan. Still I didn't scream, but I did groan a lot. Evan stood by me holding my hand and looking worried. You'd have thought every contraction was grinding his gut instead of mine. About five that evening, our little girl was born. She weighed 8'2" and seemed perfect in every way. We named her Susan Renee, since Evan couldn't remember a single cousin with those names. Two days later, we took her home.
We were like kids with a new toy. Life was good in spite of the cloth diapers and lack of a clothes dryer. We had a floor furnace, and it was February, so drying diapers was no big problem. She developed normally and seldom cried. When we brought her in for her checkup, our pediatrician declared her to be a healthy baby.
At her two-month checkup, Dr. Miller said she was in perfect health and told me it was time to start her DPT vaccinations. "Sometimes this shot makes them a little irritable, or sleepy," he warned. "She may even run a low grade temperature. If she does, give her a little infant Tylenol. The directions are on the bottle. We'll see you again in a month. Stop by the front desk and get an appointment."
On the way home, Susan managed to smile and even laugh out loud a few times. I had hoped there would be no symptoms, but two hours after the injection, she started to fret. She ran a fever during the night, but slept most of the day. When she awoke, she screamed and refused to take any nourishment. I called the doctor several times, and he assured me it was normal. That night she began screaming and bending her body backwards. We insisted the doctor see her, so he met us at the clinic.
After checking her, Dr. Miller said, "This seems more serious than I thought. We need to admit her to the hospital." I stayed by her side all night, as she alternated between long naps and screaming fits. The next day, the doctor told me they needed to do a spinal tap. When they took her away, I could still hear her screams. When they brought her back to the room, she was sleeping. She had a tube running from her nose and a drip was attached to her tiny arm. The doctor told me he had sedated her.
Mom and Dad drove the sixty miles to be with us that night. Evan and Dad stayed at the hospital so I could go home and rest. Susan slept through the night. The next morning, I went back to the hospital early, after having spent a restless night. She lay still and unmoving. I assumed she was still sedated. Evan was by her side when suddenly she stopped breathing. He raced down the hall and grabbed a nurse. The monitor had already alerted the staff that she was in trouble. Almost immediately a code was called, and the room filled with nurses and aides. They wheeled in a crash cart and started working on her.
I stood watching in muted disbelief as the paddles were put on her chest and over and over again as they tried to resuscitate her. Finally, they gave up and called the time of death. Evan put his arms around me and sobbed. We held each other, but I couldn't cry. It was like I was transported to another dimension where everything moved in slow-motion. I knew I just had to keep putting one foot in front of the other and do what had to be done. The doctor came in and told us he'd never expected this to happen, and he was sorry he hadn't been there.
In a trance-like state, I went through the motions of making the necessary phone calls. Then, Evan and I went to the funeral home to make arrangements. People came to comfort us, and I acknowledged them in a daze. For me, it was surreal. I never once was able to cry in public. I'm sure people thought me unfeeling. I realized I don't deal with grief in a normal way. When Evan and I were alone, I could let my guard down and express my grief. In public, I turned to stone. I realized then, I'd reacted the same when my grandparents died.
We had the funeral two days later. We used one of the four cemetery lots, for which we'd tried to cancel the contract. After the autopsy, Susan's final diagnosis was encephalitis, which we would later learn, is present in children who die or suffer brain damage from the whooping cough portion of the vaccine. Even with that dignosis, the doctor refused to admit the vaccine caused her death.
With the funeral over, we decided to go out of town for a few days to grieve in private. In the meantime, friends came to our home and dismantled the nursery. They felt having her bed there would be to painful for us.
On the Dolphin Island, Alabama beach, we walked on the sand dunes, talked and cried in each other's arms. We knew then we wanted more children. We were young. We had to get past this and move on. This open wound would heal, and in time, only a scar would remain. When we left to go back home, I was pregnant again. It would be a while before I realized it.
Sometimes, such an experience can destroy a marriage. In our case, I believe it drew us closer. Another pregnancy would give us new reason to hope for a better tomorrow. We would never forget Susan, but our season of grief wouldn't last forever.
 Recognized |
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Sorry, I wasn't able to get this story upbeat. Sometimes life deals hard blows.
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