So I hit the ejector seat on my desk and work and headed for the hospital I know they'll transport her to. My ex, who'd placed the call, had a failing cell phone battery but said she'd call me from Em's phone when she got there.
I drove hell bent for leather out of the gate, but as time went on and my cell didn't ring again, I got more and more worried. Was it so bad I had to see it in person? Had she stopped breathing? Is my cell phone silent because this is the kind of news you have to deliver in person, not over a cell phone to someone who's already a menace in traffic.
Honestly, I was paying too much attention to the cars around me to notice the speedometer, so I have no idea where I topped out. Maybe an idea. My guess is probably less than 100, and for certain more than 80.
So I get to the hospital and I'm the first one there. Even though I had over five miles further to travel than the ambulance, and through much less speeder-friendly avenues. That's when I realized just how fast I must have driven.
If I cut you off, sped, followed too closely, ran a stop sign, almost hit you, sped some more, failed to yield, changed lanes without signaling while running a red light and speeding, sorry about that. I'm an inconsiderate prick.
The triage nurse knew Mo was coming, but the ambulance was still somewhere between there and here.
I called Em's cell, which it turns out simply hadn't gotten transfered to her mother in the confusion. I could tell from the way Em talked about it that Mo was fine, there was no freaked out in her voice. Mommy was in the ambulance with Mo and Em and her step-dad where chasing.
So I stopped and photographed this statue as a way to unwind my mind from the coil of horror it had been wrapping itself into. Then I remembered I was supposed to be at the dentist's getting a cleaning, but I wouldn't have made that anyway for just plain forgetting. And I had a date to carpe brewski with one of my bestest friends, but figured I'd probably be rescheduling that.
Most of Mo's seizures tend to be absence or partial seizures. I've seen her seize many times, but never witnessed a full grand mal. I've seen her not breathing during a seizure, but I've never seen her in a fully involved flail, her diaphragm convulsing so fast she can't get a breath while her arms and/or legs go berserk. It's not something I want to witness, mind you. I've seen how freaked out the few who have seen her have one of those monsters get.
She did bonk her melon falling out of a chair as the seizure started, but the whole affair was over before five minutes was up. She was groggy but in pretty good spirits in the ER, and the visit turned out to be uncharacteristically short. She enjoyed having her picture taken, wanted squeezed and tickled and was basically her usual self, albeit on low battery.
I was heartened to hear she fought the paramedics when they tried to give her supplemental oxygen. Because she couldn't have kicked an oxygen tank halfway across a room if she really needed extra oxygen. Plus, with autism, you worry a little extra about creeps, and this is one kid who isn't going to let you touch her in any way she doesn't approve of. I'm sure this will make dealing with menstruation an above average challenge when that day comes, but if it also keeps her safe long term, I'm down with that.
Leaving the hospital, I was going to call Hoodlie Chick to reschedule, but looking at the time I saw I could still make the date. I said to myself, Self, you can go home and feel sorry for yourself in solitude, or you can go have a chat and a couple of highly therapeutic pints with a great friend. I almost picked solitude for fear of being bad company. But Hoodlie Chick seems to be a fairly effective balm against self pity.
Sure enough, we were arguing politics and dissecting the relative hotness of Liv Tyler and Anne Hathaway, talking about Mo's seizure, the Bejing Games, Gitmo, polygamy, casual sex, the depravity of men, and I don't know whatall.
We even talked about the Incredible Hulk, her hang-up being that she can't figure how some guy gets twenty feet tall and his pants seem to accommodate, only ripping to the knee and popping the button at the waist. But I mean, really, if you're going to buy the whole green, apparently bullet-proof skin, and a transmogrification that includes a massive increase in weight (or else why would a stool Bruce is sitting on crumple beneath the weight of the Hulk?), what's some extraordinarily stretchy corduroys?
The great thing about arguing politics with this person is, in the final analysis, we both want pretty much the same thing, but I'm an anarcho-capitalist and she's a socialist. Which is to say, I marvel at how often I basically agree with someone who is so totally wrong. I don't know what it is, but we can have these arguments without any venom at all. This is someone I've known since high school, and it's always been this way. Hell, I think it was even this way when I thought of myself as a Communist (lo those many, many years ago).
In fact, back in high school, I would have described this person as much, much more conservative than me. Which, I suppose, was partly because she wouldn't have sex with me. Not that we were dating, but at the time I made it a point to make at least some effort to have sex with every girl I knew. Fortunately, this friend had the patience of a saint, and consequently remains my friend over two decades after I did everything in my power to alienate her.
After the scare with Mo, a couple of pints and several hours of rambling conversation with Hoodlie Chick was exactly the medicine I needed.
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