MEAGAN AND THE HOSPITAL VISITS
by Kathryn Dyer Brown
Once upon a time there was a little girl named Meagan. She lived with her mommy and daddy, her big brother Corwin and her beautiful cat named Starweaver. Meagan had a courtesy 'aunt' named Sue who had been her mother's roommate in college. Sue lived too far away to visit often but she would come to see Meagan's family once or twice a year. Meagan looked forward to her visits. At least once during her visit, Sue would take Meagan and her mother Elizabeth out saying "Come on, it's time for the girls night out!" They would go eat at a restaurant and see a movie or go shopping.
One day, when Sue was visiting Meagan's family, she began having very bad headaches. None of the medicine that her doctor prescribed for her was helping. Nothing that Elizabeth or Meagan's father Michael could do helped her either. Sue's head hurt so badly that Elizabeth drove her to the local hospital's Emergency Department. Meagan played outside waiting for her mother & Sue to get back. It took them a long time. When they got back, Elizabeth looked worried. The doctors at the hospital had said it was just another migraine and given Sue more medicine but it wasn't helping her feel better.
Meagan went to hug her mother, "Mom? Why wasn't the doctor able to make Sue feel better?"
Elizabeth hugged her back, "We don't know sweetie, Sue has had migraines all her life but she says this one is worse than anything she's ever felt... we'll keep giving her healing energy but if it gets worse I'm going to take her back to the hospital." Meagan closed her eyes. She let her spine be the trunk of a tree. She let her feet be the start of roots like a tree and she thought of them going deep deep into the earth to pull up energy. She pictured the energy turning green and filling Sue up to make her feel better. She went to bed that night keeping a picture of Sue surrounded by green healing light in her mind.
The next morning, when Meagan got up, her mother and Sue were not there. Michael looked worried. He was giving her baby brother Jonathan a bottle of expressed breast milk. As she & Corwin went into the kitchen he looked up and smiled a tired smile.
"Hey you two", he said, "Your mom took Sue back to the emergency room just after Jonathan's 10:00 feeding. We're still waiting for some more test results, but it looks like Sue had an aneurysm rupture."
Corwin & Meagan sat down at the table. Meagan was confused but Corwin said, "An aneurysm is like a bubble in a blood vessel, right?"
Michael nodded, "Yes, and this one is in her brain... so it is very serious. When parts of the brain are not getting oxygen they die and it takes a long time to rewire them".
The house was very quiet that day. Later Elizabeth called to tell them that Sue was in the neuro intensive care unit. Meagan knew that meant she was very sick because she had seen a video about hospitals that talked about the different units. She asked her father to help her light a stick of incense for Sue so that she would get better. But Sue did not get better that day or the next. Elizabeth was staying at the hospital during the day and Michael would take Jonathan up on a regular basis so he could nurse. Meagan asked her father why Elizabeth had to stay there so long.
"Well sweetie, Sue doesn't have any other family, and she signed something called a 'power of attorney' a long time ago naming your mother as the person to make decisions for her if she were so sick as to not be able to make them herself. I'll tell you what, why don't you go with me the next time I take Jonathan to nurse? We are also going to a store to get a cell phone so that the hospital can get in touch with your mother at all times."
Meagan was surprised to see how tired her mother was, but nursing Jonathan seemed to actually make her feel better.
Elizabeth reached out to hug Meagan and looked up at Michael, "They're going to move Sue to the Athena teaching hospital. She needs an operation to have the aneurysm repaired before it ruptures again and the doctors here don't think they could do it as well because they don't have a lot of practice with where her aneurysm is located."
Michael squeezed her hand, "Whatever needs to be done, we'll manage".
Elizabeth stayed at the new hospital for many days with Sue. Because Sue's brain was swelling they had to wait to do the operation. The coven held a special ritual at the Dark Moon to help make the swelling go down. When Elizabeth came home, she was very tired and didn't want to do anything but eat, nurse Jonathan and sleep. Meagan missed her mother very much. Two weeks after Sue's aneurysm had ruptured they were able to do the operation. Elizabeth, Corwin, Meagan and Jonathan all went to the hospital. They sat in a special waiting area and every hour or so a special nurse would call from the operating room to let them know that things were going as expected. The operation took many hours. Meagan read all three of the books she had brought with her twice!
The doctors said that the operation had gone well, but Sue did not wake up. The doctors put her on a ventilator, which breathed for her, so that her brain could work on healing instead of breathing. A few days after the operation, the doctors found out that there were some areas of Sue's brain that needed fixing again. Meagan and her family went to the surgery waiting room again. Elizabeth rocked Jonathan back and forth a lot. She would reach out and hug Meagan whenever Meagan was near her. When the operation was over, the doctors said that things looked good but that Sue's brain needed to rest some more. The next day Meagan went back with her mother for a minute to see Sue.
It was kind of scary seeing Sue with many tubes running into her body. Her face was swollen so much that you could not see her chin. The ventilator made her chest rise & fall and she had a tube going up her nose.
Meagan stared, "Mommy? What is that tube? The stuff in it is *green*!"
Elizabeth put her arm around Meagan, "That's a feeding tube. It puts special food directly into Sue's stomach. I hope you're not mad at me Sue, but they put that in without telling me."
Elizabeth held Sue's hand, "Don't worry though, the doctors have given you some special medicine to make you sleep really deep so that your brain can heal. When you wake up they will take out the ventilator and feeding tube."
Meagan hoped it would not take long. She wanted her mother to be home when she got home from school. She wanted to snuggle with her mother on weekend mornings. She knew that Sue needed her mother, but she kept asking the Gods to make Sue get well fast so she could have her mother back!
A few days later, Elizabeth came dancing into the kitchen after visiting Sue.
"She's awake!" Elizabeth laughed, grabbing Meagan by the hands and swirling around, "The doctors are amazed. They're weaning her off the ventilator and if she keeps doing as well as she is right now, they will let her go into a lower level unit."
Everyone smiled. From what Meagan's mother had told her, it would still take a very long time for Sue's brain to relearn anything it had lost while she was sick. That night as she went to sleep, she felt Starweaver purring beside her. She put her hand on his fur and stroked him while making a picture in her mind of Sue having a picnic with the entire family. Because Sue was getting better, Elizabeth did not need to be at the hospital so much. All the coven members were taking turns visiting Sue. Meagan sighed and felt herself slipping into a deep sleep. It was hard having Sue being in the hospital and sick, but knowing that she was getting better had made it a good day.
Copyright 2001 by Kathryn Dyer Brown. We have been given permission by the author to reprint these stories. They may also be printed out and used by any parent or organization so long as they are done so for personal use or for a non-profit group. Non-profit groups are welcome to contact her about using the stories for fundraising purposes at katskats@comcast.net She also has a CafePress store where you can find cards (and shirts for Winter Holidays) that are appropriate for Solstice as well as marriage/commitment ceremonies. That url is http://www.cafepress.com/KatsKats .
