it's baby's first ambulance ride
...and she's lost her shirt
Sing, Goddess
On Saturday, I lost consciousness at our kitchen table. I only remember bits of before and after. I asked my sister to help me to the table. I sat down, asked for a saltine, bit it in half and then rested my head on the table. The cracker disintegrated in my mouth as I fell to a deep place. I didn’t know who I was or where else I could ever be.
Somewhere beyond the deep place there are sirens and a voice apologizing, I am so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I am so sorry. I am so sorry for all of this.
I climb after the sirens and sorrow. I begin to know: this is my sister cradling my head. That is my husband’s hand, “Meggi, you’re right here.” Those are my daughters trying to make room for their fear, their love and the firemen and the paramedics. That is my voice saying I am sorry. And so then I knew who I was too. I am Meggi and I am so sorry for all of this.
The moments between the before and after are told to me later by my chorus of storytellers.
They watched my shoulders slump, one hand fall to my side. My husband called 911. My sister and my daughters tried to wake me up. When I opened my eyes the first time, there was only white. When I opened my eyes the second time, my pupils were dilated and “there was no green left in your eyes, mom.” When they asked me who I was, who they were, where I was, I couldn’t answer. My storytellers move past these moments quickly.
It’s time for a joke.
My sister, “Once I knew you were going to be okay, I was mad I didn’t have my phone in my back pocket. It looked like you were in a Renaissance painting. I can’t believe I didn’t get a picture! Absolutely golden content. Your newsletter would have gone viral, for sure. Probably could have paid your mortgage with the tips you earned from it. I failed you.”
My 16 year old, “Bruh, it looked like a Caravaggio. The firefighters and paramedics were even arranged around you in a balanced composition.”
I can see it. My sister and daughter had taken my shirt off by the time the paramedics arrived. The morning light hitting what is left of my chest. My dressings are clear and so you can see the incisions under my arms and the bloodied gauze where my nipples used to be. There are plastic tubes coming out from holes in my sides. The tubes drain fluid from my wounds into bulbs I wear on a lanyard. In a different context, the scene might look like a misshapen martyr with ampoules of her own blood tied around her neck. This makes me laugh, as my family knows it will.
I love them.
And then someone steps in front of the light and the scene shifts back. I am just a woman with breast cancer. Three days out from a bilateral mastectomy. My pulse is too low, blood pressure too. The paramedics, Tiki and Claire, lift me onto a gurney and carry me to the ambulance. Tiki talks to me on the way to the hospital, she tells me my girls seemed better by the time we left the house. Claire drives gently. I am grateful.
They both have great hair, one all tumbling curls, the other perfectly draped curtain bangs. Like paramedics in a TV show. I told them I loved their hair as they unloaded me from the ambulance. They were gracious. They were also trying to get a half-dressed, cut-open woman into a hospital room. It was awkward.
Riley followed the ambulance. They wouldn't let him in until I'd been registered as a patient. When he got into my room, I asked him to send our daughters a picture as proof of life. I held my arm up and he tapped his screen. One of my daughters responded, “Okay, album cover!” I laughed and then I cried. Sing, goddess.
Message Me
You are all so generous. So many of you have reached out to find out how you can help me. I want to reach right back and hug each of you. I am back home and feeling good, all things considered! But I am having a hard time sorting through everything. So I've made a contact form!
And my sister, Jaimie, is going to help me manage messages. She will make sure I read everything! I will try to respond to every message. But sometimes I am too ill to type or even think clearly.
If your message requires a response, please select requires response in the message type menu. I will do my best to get back to you! If I can't, Jaimie - who is incredibly organized! - will get back to you!
