True it was. O, so true it was: when I was 32 and myself
already a seasoned labor, delivery, postpartum, postsurgical and emergency room
nurse from having worked, nearly solo, at three small and very rural hospitals and
who had furthered my formal education in to becoming as well a bona fide and
practicing doctor of veterinary medicine, nothing –– at all –– quite frightened me more than when any one of my three wee
sons became ill or sustained injuries. From
my belly’s growing them all into their first selves, then propelling each babe forth
into society and on until the Boys were all gone from me, the worst –– by far,
the very worst –– struck two of us on one quite late Thursday night in August
1980.
Returning home from my noon – to – 10:00pm office hours
at Dr ____ ______’s ______ Animal Hospital eight miles off southwesterly in
small – town _______, also then working there alone save for the clinic’s receptionist,
my hand turned the knob of the unlocked front door to our ( Penn State ) University
Manor apartment housing in Hershey. I had
always tried to be very quiet coming in at this hour so, easily, my one hearing
ear right there just inside the foyer picked up a tell – tale sound. I rushed right back to the Boys’ bedroom. Things were bad. There in his crib 11 – month – old Micah
Abraham Zebulon, barely up on all fours, at 11:50pm –– at just minutes before
midnight –– was struggling.
So as not to startle him nor wake up his two brothers, I
whispered Micah’s name and touched his back.
Micah looked up but was panting so rapidly –– the nurse later told me 80
respirations per minute –– that he could not even acknowledge my presence, let
alone, calm himself. As swiftly as I
could manage in the darkness, he was swaddled up inside layers of baby blankets;
and I started –– with Micah cradled in my arms –– out the door walking. The emergency room’s entrance at the
University’s Hershey Medical Center was several housing units and one not – so
– busy – now, two – way street’s distance away.
“He’s struggling to catch his breath; I think it’s croup,” I told the
admitting agent at the Front. “Please
help. He’s only 11 months old, at least,
maybe over 22 pounds by now.
Please. He needs oxygen.”
Within minutes, the night crew had Micah inside a tent of
piped oxygen after initial whiffs from a blow – by mask. He finally calmed although his respirations remained
at a high but manageable rate for several more hours. We put a warmed and dry sleeper onto Micah
the sweating from his work at breathing had been so profuse. And the rest of the night passed. While fitful, Micah did sleep some. Beside the plastic I vigiled.
At 7:30am and from the pediatric ward’s pay telephone
just outside Micah’s room in the hallway this frightening Friday morning, I phoned my boss and the clinic’s
only owner, Dr ______. “I need to take a
day today for my littlest one; my baby was hospitalized because of croup, Dr ______,
in the middle of this last night. We’ve
been here all night. They’re going to
keep him here, too.”
There was no answering me back; it actually sounded for
one long, very long moment like the line was dead. Then the sound I did register in to that right
ear and up in to my brain stated thus to me, “Well. I have no idea how we are to get along today
then. How are we gonna get done today what
needs doin’ ?!”
I swallowed. I
continued. “Micah is still not at all out
of the woods yet, Dr ______. May I
switch weekends with Dr ______?” Not
only had Dr ______, a father with two daughters in elementary school, not even
bothered himself to inquire of me about the life of my child; but that language
is the exact manipulation of power over women in the y1980 workplace and, in
the fright and morbidity of my so – sick baby, to what guilt – ridden and
veiled threat for my job I had had to listen.
The next day –– only Micah’s second one then of
hospitalization for a babe’s life – threatening illness –– would be the start
of the weekend, of course. The scheduled
coverage over at the _______ Animal Hospital for this particular upcoming one? I was to work its emergency call –– through
until Monday –– on which day, then, I
would return to beginning my regular hours at noontime. At the practice with a total of the three of
us veterinarians affiliated with it there, Dr ______, Dr _______, also a father
of two schoolchildren, and me with three kiddos all under five years of age,
each one of us was required to take such call every third weekend. In the short few months of my work there as
an employed veterinarian, the same status as was Dr _______, I had noted the
two of them switching around such weekends’ scheduled – call nearly a dozen
times already, certainly eight or nine weekends’ worth, that is. And this one?
This was my very first request of the boss for one to be changed and
substituted in his scheduling.
Yes, Micah Abraham Zebulon did respiratorily improve and
was able on continued liquid antibiotics to be discharged out of that ward and
into my arms and off to home across the Manor way that August’s next Monday
morning. But after that previous and
entirely sleepless Friday off clinic work and my ministering all of its 24 hours
to a very, very sick Micah at his cribside?
Dr _______, the other daddy, refused to switch his next weekend’s call
with me right then. After my asking Dr _______,
the boss refused to take mine as well.
Instead and because of its cruelty causing a burnt memory in my brain
which has never left me, Dr Maas, a mama who did not want to be forced to do that
which she did do, left on that Saturday morning the side of Micah’s oxygen tent
and worked call that very particular weekend.
Instead and against my will, I took and carried out a total of 22 hours’
worth of emergencies. To keep my
job. True it was. O, so true it was: I sacrificed the
precious time at the bedside of my so–ill kiddo just to keep my job. I feared that loss –– more it seems.
A couple of new years’ weeks later –– on one of the seven days between the 25th
of December and the 01st of January when home in the evenings from the laboratory, I
opened in Columbia, Missouri, an envelope addressed to me from Dr ____ _ ______. It was
–– the substance and depth of it
–– an accounting / an accountability for his behavior that August 1980 weekend
and at other worktimes. It was an apology to me. I never saw Dr ______ again. I never heard from him again.
