A Wild 24 Hours

Tuesday night, we had a nice dinner with our son and daughter-in-law and her mother, prior to going to the hospital to begin her induction for childbirth. They got settled in by 9:30, we took her mother to their apartment, and then we went home.

I was in bed reading when our daughter-in-law called at 11:40 to say that our son had passed out in the birthing room, hit his head on the floor and was in the emergency room. Thirty minutes later, I was sitting in a cold room in ER, listening to my 30-year-old son not make any sense at all. The CT scan showed a small hematoma/clot on the back side of his head. They decided to watch it for the night, and admitted him to a room in ICU. I was back home about 3:30 a.m. and in bed at 4.

At 8:30 Wednesday morning, I was back at the hospital, shuttling between my son on the 4th floor and my daughter-in-law on the 2nd. My wife arrived at 11:30. My son had a CT scan at 1, and then an hour later the doctor was in the room with him and us, telling us the hematoma was getting bigger. Less than an hour later, he was prepared for surgery.

My son will eventually blog this from his perspective, but it's amazing how many wonderful and providential things happened: a long-time neighbor and friend turned out to be the 4th floor concierge at the hospital; a pastor showed up in the middle of the discussion with the doctor, and he stayed until everyone except me and my son had left and then, with my son in his bed, we were on our knees praying; when they wheeled my son in his bed downstairs to the operating rooms, the nurses took a detour -- through the childbirth wing on the second floor so he and my daughter-in-law could have a few moments together; a pastor from our church spent an hour and a half with us during my son's surgery, talking and praying and reading from Psalms.

And people all over been praying for my son and daughter-in-law. And I mean all over. I've received more direct messages on Twitter, more emails, more phone calls than I ever could have imagined -- I was overwhelmed with God's love, and so was my family. I can't ever express the depth of my thanks.

Here at the hospital (it's 9:10 p.m. as I write this), my son and daughter-in-law are celebrities. As the night nurse just told my son, "You guys make a great story." And they do.

But I'd prefer a little less drama the next time.

Update: And checking my RSS feed tonight, I find this by my friend Maureen Doallas: Love Builds Up: Poem for Glynn.