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Heart In My Hands
By Jim Ross — GUEST COLUMNIST
“Wake up! Michael’s stopped breathing. We gotta go.”
The voice seems familiar, perhaps a childhood playmate’s. I cling to sleep, intrigued where the voice might lead.
“Get up! Emily needs us,” comes the voice, strident, impatient.
Eyes open, I sit bolt upright.
“Move!” Ginger pleads.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Baby Michael stopped breathing. Emily did CPR. The paramedics just got there.” Ginger pivots and runs downstairs.
I pull on sweatpants and follow.
“Grab two days of clothes and pills. I’ll be in the car,” she says.
I throw a handful of clothes into a Trader’s bag, count pills into a bottle, and drop into the passenger seat at 5:20 a.m.
“WAZE says we’ll get there at 6:02,” I announce as we pull away.
After a few minutes’ silence Ginger says, “Poor baby.”
“Poor Emily,” I respond.
Two months earlier, our daughter’s preeclampsia caused her blood pressure to spike like Roman Candles and her kidneys to piss out far more protein than she took in. It looked like a race between stroking out and kidneys shutting down. After her C-section, we breathed in relief…
