Calling all Angels

A lady I work with told me I should write a book about all the things that happen in my life. You will not believe what has happened in the last 24 hours. I’m still in a bit of shock myself…

Last night 10PM…

The setting: Game night with kids… all are home except my youngest daughter who spent the night with a friend.
The phone rings… (When is it ever a good time when the phone rings late at night…?) My friend is on the other line. Chaos sounds and shrieking in the background…

“Trish, you need to come over right away. your daughter has gotten her finger jammed in the door… you need to come over!”
Not another word is needed, I grab my keys and purse running out with my just my house shoes on and fly over to her house.

I take up the entire driveway and open the car door. I can hear my daughter shrieking from the driveway. My heart and mind are racing… I opened the front door and my friend’s oldest daughter is screaming in hysterics, bawling like crazy, just screaming and pointing to the kitchen saying, “She’s IN THERE!!” I rounded the kitchen to see my dear friend holding my daughter amongst a blood bath - my baby shrieking and shaking - my friend crying and shaking - trying to keep it together and calm her down.

I tell ya, there was a guardian angel telling me what to do, because I don’t remember consciously making a single decision to move. It just kinda happened. The grace of God in a mother’s heart…that’s all I can think of it to be…

I ran over to my baby girl and gently pulled away the blood soaked towel… I truly cannot type into words to describe what I saw…
I looked up at my friend who just kept saying over and over through tears, “Oh Trish, I’m SO SORRY… I’m SO Sorry!”

I said, “It’ll be okay… where is the rest of her finger?”  My friend's daughter immediately ran to the bedroom and met me in the hallway holding the top part of my daughter’s middle finger.
I asked her where the baggies were and dumped ice into the baggy, not caring about how much had fallen into the floor. I threw the tip of her finger into the baggy, and then ran to take my baby from friend's arms.

I just remember saying, “Don’t look at it sweetie! It’s gonna be okay!”

My friend drove my car to the hospital with my daughter and I in the backseat…her little body shaking and hot and sweaty and her head buried into the crook of my neck. My husband met us there.
Two weeks ago I threw my back out, but I really didn’t think much about the pain as I heaved my 70 lbs seven year old baby up in my arms through the Emergency doors, my friend at my heals.
We were immediately taken back. The staff at St. Vincent’s couldn’t have been any sweeter or helpful. After a drip of morphine, my baby girl had settled down. Our ER doctor called Children’s Hospital for a recommendation… as luck would have it, there happened to be a hand surgeon specialist working at Little Rock Children’s Hospital last night.

PRAISE GOD! ...was all that would go through my head… Thank you, thank you Lord!
We were taken by ambulance to Children’s Hospital. My girl was feeling no pain now with the morphine drip… in fact she had become quite the chatter bug and captured every nurse and doctor’s attention.

By 2:30 AM, about 4 ½ hours after the incident, she was taken into surgery. Her odds for survival of her finger are 50/50. Now at 24 hours past the shock. The nurses at the first hospital, (St. Vincent’s) had asked that we call them later to let them know how my daughter was doing.
I just got off the phone with the nurse, who was so appreciative of the phone call. I thanked her, because the staff at the hospital couldn’t have been any kinder. She told me what a brave and sweet little girl I had, I told her thank you, but she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know.

Then she told me how well I did. Quite honestly, I didn’t realize I was doing so well… I was just being a mother and trying to not let my baby see any fear. The nurse said that another family that was waiting in the emergency room overheard our story. She said that the mother of that family said, she could not believe my composure…that she would have been on the floor as a basket case.

Oh, but I did break down… I broke down at 1:30 AM when I called my mother to tell her what was going on. To put words to what had just happened, broke me. I couldn’t speak… I know it could be so much worse and I’m thankful that it wasn’t… but it was still a horrific ordeal. I’ll be on my knees asking for a miracle to break the odds of 50/50… I want the 50 good! And if you are reading this blog, send one up to the man upstairs for my daughter’s finger to survive and for my friend, who is holding overwhelming amount of unneccessary guilt on her shoulders. It could have happened to any one of us…on any one's watch!   It was an accident. That’s all it was, and we will all survive.




Sunday May 6, 2007 - 12:26am