The Call that Changed it All
Long gone were the days when healthcare professionals stayed home and “quarantined” when they tested positive for COVID regardless of symptomatology. We worked and grinded through while telling our patients to stay home. It was a ludicrous double standard. I was approaching over a month of night chills, extreme lethargy, chronic cough, and shortness of breath. However, I could barely find someone to cover the Friday pain shifts at the surgery center as it was, much less last minute. I remember the surgeon telling me I really should go get checked out, as we trudged on through 4 more cases. I vividly remember thinking I wasn’t sure I had the energy to finish the day, but somehow, I managed to. I had the kids that weekend because my ex was on call, and fortunately Aga was here to help out.
The entire Friday night, I tossed and turned with cold sweats and leg cramps, coughing myself into fits causing me to vomit. I was certain I had developed pneumonia from COVID. When the sun reared on Saturday morning, I was desperate to feel better. I knew I didn’t want Aga to take me to the emergency room and expose the kids to whatever other germs were there nor could we leave them at home alone. My only option was to ask my ex to take me to the emergency room at the hospital he was on call at for the weekend. Begrudgingly, I let him drive me the 30 minutes to Marble Falls. We had just pulled into the parking lot when my phone rang. It was my cousin. We rarely talk on the phone, if ever, so it was odd that she was calling but I silenced my phone and sent the auto “Can I call you later?” text as we walked toward the emergency room automatic sliding glass doors. Immediately, she text me back, “No, it’s an emergency.”
Earlier that summer we had all enjoyed our traditional week away as a family- floating the crystal clear Frio River and climbing Ol’ Baldy. This was the first time that I can remember not climbing or continuing the age-old tradition of placing a small rock on the top of the rock pile at the summit; I was recovering from a 2 month old ACL repair and my orthopedic surgeon was already not thrilled I was going. “Going to Garner,” as we referenced it, was a 50-year summer tradition that started when my mom was a kid. Unfortunately, secondary to life circumstances, each year more friends and less family made the trek. This particular summer, one of my parents’ former foster children, now an adult, joined all of us at Garner. She had been staying with them for a few months after graduating from college. She wasn’t the partying type and had maybe drank a few too many pina coladas before dinner. As we all gathered around the table to eat, her eyes started to sink and I honed in on her color change. My astute assessment skills had us catching her just before she slumped over and lost consciousness. In retrospect, I’ve never seen my mom panic like she did and trust me, my careless, accident-prone father has had his share of emergencies. Me, I was calm as a cucumber as per my usual, checking her pulse and reassuring my family as I placed her in the recovery position and supported her head. A few minutes later she regained consciousness completely unaware of what had happened. We hydrated her and kept her away from the booze for the remainder of the trip. Bree had never suffered an episode like that before or after, but it was still fairly fresh on everyone’s mind. Throughout the summer, my kids would bring it up from time to time asking the same questions, but unable to comprehend exactly what happened.
When my cousin called, her speech was hurried and labored. I was trying to make sense of her through my constant coughing and the wind as I walked back to my ex’s truck. From what I could gather, “she” was found down at my mom’s house and no one knew what happened or the status of her condition but that my cousin, my aunt, and EMS were on their way to my mom’s house. As I reassured my cousin, the best that I could, I could hear the uneasiness in her voice. I asked her once again, to more slowly explain what she knew. I had completely misunderstood. Bree wasn’t “found down,” it was my mom was. I took slow, steady breaths as I walked my cousin through various possibilities and scenarios. She gave me turn by turn updates as she neared my parents’ house. On normal days, it was a good fifteen minute drive down the dirt country winding road. I’m certain my cousin made it in less than half that time, yet time felt like it creeped by so slowly as I waited on the phone. When I heard my cousin say, “okay, I see mom’s car and I see the ambulance, but it’s not going anywhere. Why isn’t it going anywhere?” I knew there were only 2 options, my mom’s condition had stabilized and she was refusing transport or there was no condition to stabilize.
As my cousin ran through our garage door, her phone in hand, my aunt just sobbed “she’s gone, she’s gone.” My cousin quickly let my aunt know that it was me on the phone in her hand. There was silence, a deafening silence. My aunt grabbed the phone and said the typical, “honey, I’m so sorry, she’s gone” greeting “but the paramedic has questions for you.” I gently removed the phone from my ear and calmly told my ex, “Can you please take me to Madisonville, my mom is dead?” I slowly put the phone back up to my ear and detailed her medications, typical morning routine, allergies, medical history, etc. It was as if I was handing off a patient report like I had done thousands of times before. I was so professional and stoic. I asked very specific questions regarding her positioning, her coloring, her attire, and the exact condition they found her in. Maybe because I was so composed, they assumed I could handle it all. They described every single detail down to a sheet that was found next to her. They described a small amount of blood from her mouth from where it looked like she had bitten her lip when she collapsed. They explained where her phone was located and that it looked like she had maybe been reaching for it on the nightstand when she fell. In retrospect, those details haunt me. I can picture everything just as if I was there, only I wasn’t. I was 4 hours away and the only immediate family member available.
Five days before this phone call that changed my life, my brother and father had flown with friends to a remote camp in Canada only accessible via private seaplane for a week-long fishing trip. They had chartered the plane to drop them off and pick them up at specified times. Other than that, they were all together bonding and fishing deep in the wilderness of Canada completely inaccessible by any traditional means. No phones, no computers, no mail (if that even still exists). My dad or the charter company would check in and my mom would disseminate the information. My mom had been the spokesperson for the wives. Only now… my mom was gone. It was just me now, in a truck, racing on backroads with the one person I couldn’t have wanted to share this experience with less driving me. I knew it wouldn’t be long before social media would go wild in my small town and man was I right. I had barely been on the road an hour when the first condolence post hit on my mom’s Facebook page. I was navigating this disaster from afar having people log into my mom’s phone and deactivate her accounts while I tried to reach my dad and brother. At one point, I felt my eyes well up with tears but I knew if I let them loose, I’d never be able to stop them.
I called every wife I could think of and none of them had the details of the charter company. Finally, someone found an email on my mom’s phone and we googled the name and found a number. I called and left multiple voicemails that I needed someone to contact me immediately because there had been an emergency. Two hours into the drive and dozens of phone calls to family and friends later, the company returned my call. The kind gentleman said that the last seaplane had already returned for the day and it would have to wait for tomorrow, which was their scheduled pickup date anyway. I explained to the man that I could not wait one minute longer. I was alone in this world and needed help and support navigating so many decisions and I was terrified that as soon as they got back into cell phone service range they were going to be bombarded with confusing text messages and alerts from everyone except me. After much back and forth, the understanding man personally boarded the seaplane and headed out to pick up my dad and brother armed with the knowledge that minutes after he would return them, their worlds would be shattered and forever changed. The pilot gave me an estimated arrival time guessing the flight there and back of when I should expect their call.
Three hours into the never-ending drive back to my hometown my cellphone rang and my brother’s photo flashed on the screen. I had been on such a mission getting everything in order and letting the appropriate people know which funeral home, cremation wishes, etc that I hadn’t taken the time to rehearse what I planned to say when my dad and brother called. My heart sank and I took a long deep breath before I answered my phone willing myself to keep it together. As soon as I answered I heard my brother’s voice slowly say, “Hey Julie, dad’s here with me.” There was an implicit purpose with each one of the six words he chose. They were both asking without asking what was going on. They had a feeling there had been something unfortunate happenstance, but they had no clue who or what or when. I took one more fragmented inhale before saying, “Mom is dead. I’m not home yet but I can tell you what I know.”
