Touched by a Life

In my experience one can be touched by a physical or tactile sensation or touched as in touched by emotions or senses. It's the ones that reach us the most that create a cognitive event that forever remains planted in our minds.

Take for instance the birth of a child. This is a moment so extreme that it touches everyone in or around the family expecting the child. Even the sight of a pregnant woman gives rise to the inexplicable urge to touch her burgeoning stomach for some. Even more interesting is how the combined emotions of the arrival touch others as well.

Thinking for a moment about my life and how this was true for me I go back to the conception and birth of our first born son. We had tried for over 8 years to conceive. When the first home test was positive we were overjoyed. It gave rise to the idea that surely it was a false positive so I took another. It was positive as well. So in disbelief I called my mother, an RN as well as Mom, and said,

"Mom I don't understand how this happened?" To which she replied,

"Sweetie if you don't know by now I am not telling you!" and she laughed and so did I.

Of course I was thinking 'how did this happen now?' Rather than how did it happen in the physical sense. But we laughed and still laugh about that phone call now. That was the happy portion of the story. We were touched by the fortune of conceiving and the humor we could find in our disbelief.

It was not until later in my pregnancy were we to discover that the joy that had touched our lives would lead to sadness and tears. We were told at a routine ultrasound that this miracle could be taken from us soon after birth. He was diagnosed with what is called a diaphragmatic hernia. I will spare you the most intimate details and simplify it. Our son was born with no left side to his diaphragm. This leads to a crowding of the lungs. In his case it appeared he had no lungs. In-utero he was fine and quite lively. It was when he was born and attempted his first breath would he be touched by struggle.

So touched by the news of this probable loss we grieved even before he was born. For two weeks we cried and tried to console ourselves thinking we had lost everything. Then amazingly we stopped crying. The week the doctors wanted to induce labor he, my son, had his own plans. Natural labor was taking course so I elected to wait being touched by his attempt to come on his own terms. We decided then and there that the grieving was over. We would take whatever time we had and cherish it. My only stipulation on the day of delivery was very clear to all, my son need to be touched by his parents his condition permitting. I didn't care what part or for how long just so we touched him. I told my OB, all the NICU doctors, and anyone else that would listen.

The day of his delivery began early in the morning. It was a natural delivery with little in the way of pain medication because of the time and his condition. As soon as he was born he was whisked to the other side of the room. I will never forget how silent the room was. Not a sound from him just the voices of the nurses and doctors as they took his vitals. They cleaned him up and prepared him to go straight to the NICU. As they passed by the table they paused for a moment and said we could touch his foot. We both reached out and touched his little blue foot and told him that we loved him.

I did not see him again for another day. I spent the night in the hospital he was born in, alone with my father. My mother and my husband went with him to Children's hospital. I would follow to visit the next morning. He lived on life support or ECMO for 29 days. He developed an infection the last week and had to be removed from life support. He was unable to survive without life support. After 12:30 am on the 30th day he died.

The events of that morning still touch me now. So many people worked so hard to find another answer for us. The doctors, the fellows, the nurses, everyone on that floor it seemed. No one wanted to face what ended up as the final answer. I will always remember my father, this big strong tough guy, looking at me and shaking with tears as he said, "I'm sorry I can't fix this one for you baby." When they took him off life support it was the first opportunity we had to actually hold him. I held him for what seemed like forever before passing him to his Dad. He held him with me because he didn't have the strength to do it on his own. As his heart rate dropped they disconnected the leads for the readings and behind me my husband fell to his knees. He dropped so quickly the doctors thought he had suffered a heart attack. He was so touched by this loss that his legs could no longer support him.

We touched the lives of the staff of the hospital as we chose not to dwell on his probable death but instead cherished the time we had. His treating physician was so touched he made a point to tell us. He had thought for a time that we were simply deluding ourselves about a recovery. At the end he was touched because he realized what choice we had made. We understood but were not dwelling on death but life instead. I was so touched by them that I stitched a portrait of an angel holding an infant and dedicated to our son. It now hangs in the meeting room of the NICU at the Pittsburgh Children's hospital.

Yes touch is a very important sense in our lives. We will be touched physically and emotionally through out our lives if we live them right.