Tonight’s post is a bit of a throwback to when The Max Journey really started

The hallways were all black, the only light was the blue glow emanating from room after room in the NICU.  The normal beeps, bings, and dings that filled the air were eerily silent.  I had been accustomed to visiting Max in the morning, I had been visiting him each morning for the past 3 weeks as Max was growing and getting stronger.  This morning was different, we had been woken up by an early morning call that Max was sick.  Sick however was a word that couldn’t describe what I was about to walk into.

The halls seemed to be miles long that morning, the halls I had walked so many times before seemed so foreign.  I came to the last corner and saw one room illuminated by the flourescent lights hospitals are so known for.  One room at the end of the hall with what was no less than a dozen doctors spilling out of the small cut-out of a room.  Time seemed to stop, I suddenly felt the shock of every step travel up from my foot through my entire body.  How long it actually took me to make it to the room I am unsure of, I don’t remember any of the rooms I passed.  I simply walked towards the light.

I got to the room and began to see expressions, not faces, not people but expressions.  Empathy, sympathy, pain, fear the emotion was clearly evident.  The people began to part and usher me up to the small unit containing my son.  In his time in the NICU Max had never been in an isolate or had intubation, but now it seemed every machine in the room was hooked up to Maddox.  It was difficult to know where the machines ended and Max began.  When I really saw Max his skin was a gray translucent color, this was clearly what death looked like.

I remember distinctly looking around for somebody to tell me everything was going to be ok, that this was just a bump in the road.  I remember not being able to make eye contact with anyone.  I sat looking at my son in total isolation, yet in a room full of people.  The visegrips of despair were fully locked in, the intensity of the moment had drained me of any logical thought.  I crumbled into a chair next to Max, my face buried in my hands as I slumped over in the folding metal chair.

That day loneliness was redefined, people will come and go in my life.  Relationships will be built and torn down, but nothing can compare to the loneliness I experienced that day, and that was where The Max Journey really began.

sb