Across the Water
Michael Murray
English 101
Theresa Stein
Across the Water “There’s a large posterior fossa mass. Surgery is scheduled for two o’clock.” Those words launched a journey of nearly ten years for me and my youngest child. A journey largely responsible for shaping the people we’ve become since that horrendous, God-awful moment.
“That’s only an hour from now… I need more time and I need more information,” I finally responded. It felt as though I’d been slammed between two steel plates and pushed off a cliff. For a few dreadful minutes I was enveloped in a crushing blackness, deaf and blind to everything around me - reeling at the news. What the hell was a posterior fossa mass? But nobody was going to open up my baby’s skull before I knew who he was and saw the pictures. And got my other kids to the hospital and called people who needed to know and talked with Bobby and, Oh God! I couldn’t think what else I needed to do first.
Bobby’s dad was appalled that I would just snap orders at the young residents who had rushed off to try to arrange for me to meet the surgeon and see the MRI. “You can’t just make them change their schedule!” Steven would be appalled several times over the next decade, as would a few other folks. The priest at my son’s bedside when we returned to PICU was first in line.
“How dare you?” I hissed as I took his arm and marched him out. We had very deliberately checked ‘no religion’ on the admission forms the day before, because we had never taken Bobby to church. Why in the world was a priest talking to my five year old about dying and going to heaven? We had only just been informed of the situation. This man couldn’t know our religion and he certainly hadn’t asked me if I wanted him to counsel my child and, Jesus Christ, Bobby wasn’t wasn’t going to die….?! Well, I laid into that priest – cussed a blue streak and demanded that he never, ever speak to another child without speaking to the parents about their wishes first. Of course,
English 101
Theresa Stein
Across the Water “There’s a large posterior fossa mass. Surgery is scheduled for two o’clock.” Those words launched a journey of nearly ten years for me and my youngest child. A journey largely responsible for shaping the people we’ve become since that horrendous, God-awful moment.
“That’s only an hour from now… I need more time and I need more information,” I finally responded. It felt as though I’d been slammed between two steel plates and pushed off a cliff. For a few dreadful minutes I was enveloped in a crushing blackness, deaf and blind to everything around me - reeling at the news. What the hell was a posterior fossa mass? But nobody was going to open up my baby’s skull before I knew who he was and saw the pictures. And got my other kids to the hospital and called people who needed to know and talked with Bobby and, Oh God! I couldn’t think what else I needed to do first.
Bobby’s dad was appalled that I would just snap orders at the young residents who had rushed off to try to arrange for me to meet the surgeon and see the MRI. “You can’t just make them change their schedule!” Steven would be appalled several times over the next decade, as would a few other folks. The priest at my son’s bedside when we returned to PICU was first in line.
“How dare you?” I hissed as I took his arm and marched him out. We had very deliberately checked ‘no religion’ on the admission forms the day before, because we had never taken Bobby to church. Why in the world was a priest talking to my five year old about dying and going to heaven? We had only just been informed of the situation. This man couldn’t know our religion and he certainly hadn’t asked me if I wanted him to counsel my child and, Jesus Christ, Bobby wasn’t wasn’t going to die….?! Well, I laid into that priest – cussed a blue streak and demanded that he never, ever speak to another child without speaking to the parents about their wishes first. Of course,