Читать книгу Just Breathe - Honey Perkel - Страница 13

Brian gave us our first real scare when he was six months old. It was late December and he’d been battling a cold for several days. Temperature. Sneezing. Runny nose. Our pediatrician had advised baby Tylenol, lots of liquids, and rest. Late one night as I was going to bed, Bob suddenly rushed into our room.

“Brian’s having trouble breathing,” he said anxiously.

In moments I was up, racing across the hall. Before I reached the nursery, I could hear a deep, raspy sound. An inhuman, rhythmic noise. Like a seal, perhaps, or an injured dog. Certainly, not a sound I’d ever heard before.

Fear gripped me as I flipped on the light and looked down at my baby. His eyes were large, helpless, staring at me. I picked him up and hugged him closely. Bob stood beside me, feeling as helpless as I.

“Call the clinic,” I ordered, my heart pounding. “They’ll tell us what to do.”

Brian was limp in my arms. He struggled with every breath, trying to force the air in and out of his lungs. I could feel the effort.

“Breathe,” I begged him. “Just keep breathing, baby.” I forced my voice to stay calm for both of us.

Bob hurried back to Brian’s bedroom. “The doctor on duty said to take him to the hospital.” His voice didn’t sound like it belonged to him.

I threw on a pair of jeans and a sweater and grabbed a blanket. In just minutes we were running out of the house. The streets were icy. Bob took the route to Emanuel Hospital carefully, and I prayed all the way. Breathe, baby, breathe, I repeated again and again inside my head. I wasn’t sure whether I was saying the words for Brian or instructing myself.

“Don’t mind the speed limit,” I told Bob. “If we get stopped, maybe the police’ll give us an escort.” No cop in his right mind would give us a ticket, I decided.

Suddenly I was aware of how quiet it had grown in the car. All I could hear were the car’s tires grinding into the chards of ice on the roadway. The windshield wipers thudded back and forth as they worked clearing the snow flakes from the glass. I could no longer hear Brian gasping for air. With growing fear I turned to look at him in the back where he sat in his carseat. In the dim light projected from the moon and street lights, he sat looking at me, his tiny hands reaching out, grasping. His small puckered mouth, forming a grin.

“Look! I think he feels better!” I exclaimed.

“We’re almost at the emergency entrance,” Bob said, swinging into the hospital lot and parking near the entry door.

I climbed out of the car and unbuckled Brian from his carseat. “How’re we going to convince them that he couldn’t breathe? He’s just fine now.” I laughed with relief.

“Maybe the doctors can tell us what happened. How we can prevent it next time.”

I couldn’t imagine a next time.

I wrapped the thick baby blanket around Brian to protect him from the cold night air. Then we entered the hospital, inquiring where Pediatric Emergency was.