Dust Bunnies

Dust Bunnies

I will never forget. The room was empty, sterile, lifeless. My dad and I sat in complete silence, hands gripping the phone beside us, waiting for the surgeon to call with one-word updates. My eyes drifted to where Van’s bed WAS, and all my eyes could focus on was a collection of dust bunnies on the hospital floor. 

Amos was intubated minutes after birth and emergently received a balloon to keep his little body alive until his open-heart surgery. I was able to hobble my way down to the NICU at 3:00 AM when he was finally stable. I was in such a daze after scarfing an entire pizza and dozing in and out of sleep, waiting for the nurse to call me to give me the green light to go down. Tyler stayed the night in his NICU room, and after just a few short moments, I walked myself back up to the postpartum floor. Amos was already covered in lines, on a breathing tube/ventilator, and pumped with narcotics to help keep his pain at bay. He was only hours old, and already so much had happened in his little life. The first time I held him, he was three days old. I will never forget how much I cried when it took three nurses to hand him to me. They wrapped his cords around my neck. I felt such deep sadness it’s hard to describe. Sure, I was so grateful that I was surrounded by amazing doctors and nurses that had kept him alive, but I felt more anger and sadness than anything. 

On Friday morning, March 4, Amos had his arterial switch operation and surgery to fix his aorta. At 7:00 AM, the doctors began to prep his little body. There was so much activity in the room. Tyler and I watched nervously. Thirty minutes later, the doctor told us we could give our kisses and say our farewells. Tyler read a Psalm over Amos, and we listened to Sam’s song once again. It felt like a holy moment. It was a holy moment. As soon as Tyler began to speak, the room was quiet. The doctors, surgeons, and nurses completely stopped and waited until he was finished. We kissed our little Amos, and they rolled his bed away. The commotion left the room. Tyler prayed aloud, giving God thanks. I sat in silence, looking at the dust bunnies collected on the empty hospital room floor. Here I was again, holding on to hope and waiting for our first update that surgery was underway. 

Throughout the longest day of my life, we received texts from the OR. Amos was finished with prep, his lines were in, he was on by pass, his aorta was patched, his arterial switch was starting, taking him off bypass, warming his body after cooling his body, surgery was over and he was stable. 

We reunited with Amos around 5:30 PM. I tried to prepare myself for when I would see him post-op, but the truth is nothing can prepare you. The bottom line was that he had made it through the surgery. The surgery was successful. The coming days were about seeing how he would respond to the trauma his body had just endured. We left the hospital emotionally tanked, grateful, and sad. We finished the night by starting the sabbath with the boys. We made tacos and margaritas and tried our best to rest.