School memoir from our amazing daughter S

I have always know S was amazing, but today she showed me just a little more.  Her and I have talked and wrote notes to each other and texted and cried and hugged and shared so many things since May 14, (well really forever) but today I read something she wrote for school and it made me see a new side of her.  A grown up side.  She is growing up so quickly and turning into such an awesome young lady.  I wanted to share her story.

First day of the last year in middle school.

S can multi task like no other....

S has a soul that animals love.

Friday September 14, 2012....*tears did fall through this, I apologize

The Worst Night of My Life

By: Jaelyn Silvey

Core 1

            It was a typical Monday in May or so I thought. Like every morning my mom drove me to my bus stop. We had our morning conversation, its subject changed from day to day, depending on our moods. My bus came and we said our goodbyes. I expected to see her that evening at 8:00 when my dad dropped me off.

            I did see her that night but she was a different woman than I saw that morning.  I came home to find her laying in her bed slightly pale and the look of pain on her face.

            “Hi, mom” I said quietly. She opened her eyes and smiled. “I guess you’re not feeling well. What’s the matter”?

            “I have a headache that’s pretty bad. I’ll be better in the morning” Mom answered. Boy was she wrong. That morning my step-dad woke me up instead of mom. I glanced into the master bedroom to see what I could see. I just saw my mom sleeping. I didn’t think anything except she was just tired.

            That afternoon she was still in bed. The night proceeded like usual. My little brother and sister were put to bed and I was watching TV before bed. As always the commercials were obnoxiously loud so I muted them. I heard something that I’ve never forgotten. It was my mom moaning because of the pain. I heard her say ‘make it stop’ and ‘make it go away’. In that moment I knew whatever this illness was, it was more than a headache.

            That morning my step-dad woke me up and drove me to the bus again. I went to my dad’s house that night like Monday. Around 5:30ish I received a text from my step-dad. It explained that mom was in the hospital. I freaked out. In my head I thought so many different things. The most prominent thoughts were: Why? And What if this goes the other direction and I don’t have a mom anymore? My step-dad explained that he had taken her in that evening and she was admitted. Again I asked why? After a spinal tap she was diagnosed with meningitis.

            Mom was there for about 4 days, which made it Sunday when she was released. That Thursday, a day after being admitted, I went to see her. We had to wear masks to go into her room. For me, I understood what was happening. For my little brother and sister it was different. As a 6 and 5 year old it had to be the most terrifying thing to see. The room was dark and there were many objects that could give off a very scary impression. My sister, Kimberly, stuck to me during the visit. About 10 minutes into the visit my sister asked me ‘I want to go.’ There was something about her voice that has clung to me, a mixture of fear, confusion, worry and sadness in those four words. To her joy we left. That night I thought of all the things that could go wrong. It took forever for me to fall asleep but I finally drifted off into a light sleep with dreams that kept me tossing and turning all night.

            That morning I had a hard time not being depressed. I couldn’t focus on anything except for my mom.  I made it to German class before I lost it. I had just finished presenting my “Das bin Über mich” when my vision was being obscured. In one eye I could see fine. In the other eye I could barely see anything but dots. I secretly relied on my friends to get back to the 7^th grade commons. I figured out my way to my locker. By then I could see clearly but my head started to pound. It got to the point that I felt like every sound around me was amplified 100 times. All the veins in my head felt like drums with somebody hitting them really hard.  Towards the end of orchestra I couldn’t handle school. I called my grandma and she came and got me. My neck and head were throbbing. If you don’t know, Meningitis affects your neck and causes severe neck pain. After a trip to the doctor I was confirmed not sick. As I reflect now, I had worried myself sick. I was so focused on my mom I had forgotten myself, neglecting eating properly and drinking enough water.

            By Sunday my mom was released. She was told she had viral meningitis and needed to rest. After a week our family had a BBQ. We stayed up late into the night talking and thanking our lucky stars. We all thought the worse was over. Again we were all wrong, so very wrong.

            That Sunday I spent the day with my friends who lived across the street. Around 1:30 I called my mom. I asked her if I could stay with my friends until dinner time. She said yes. Mom sounded tired. I brushed it off thinking that after all that’s happened and how late we stayed up she was just plain old tired. I again was wrong.  Around 6:30 my phone rang. The contact came up as Mama Mia which is my mom. I answered it expecting my mom telling me to come home for dinner. It was my step-dad telling me to come home now. I didn’t expect anything was wrong. I walked home to find him in a worried state.

            “Dave? What’s going on” I asked

            “The paramedics are on their way. Your mom is very sick” He said something about clearing the way, dinner in the oven and keep the kids occupied and out of the way. I barely heard any of it. As soon as he said ‘the paramedics are on their way’ my heart stopped and I felt the color drain from my face. I ran upstairs to find lying in my mom’s place a woman I didn’t recognize. She was the same person but the old mom I used to know gone. By the look on her sweat ridden face I could tell she was in a completely different world that no one in our family have been in nor could go there ourselves. I whispered “I love you” before I was ushered out of the room. I put on a brave smiling face before taking my brother and sister away. I took them downstairs to stay occupied. My step-dad told me to call my Aunt Angie. I did but she didn’t answer. I thought to myself “Angela, why didn’t you answer? I need you NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!”! I then called my grandma.

            “Hi Jae. What’s up?”

            “Grandma, the paramedics are on their way to our house right now. Mom is really sick and they are taking her away.”

            “Wait… What?”

I repeated what I had said. Grandma then told me to stay calm and she was going to try and call Angie again.

            After a couple of minutes Angie called.  She told me she was on her way to come get us.

I needed to become the brave big sister instead of the emotional wreck that I was. I decided to play hangman on our hanging whiteboard. Soon we heard sirens, distant at first but suddenly dreadfully loud. The paramedics raced in. They ran upstairs. Then the firemen came in and cleared the way for the stretcher.

             One of the firemen was a woman. She came downstairs and looked at us with a very sincere gaze and told us “Everything will be alright. We are doing everything we can”. In that moment I realized that these strangers care about us, two children and a teenager who were full of fear and their eyes glassy with tears. After the firewoman left I had a small hope that everything truly would be ok. Even though one of the worst things of my life was happening, I knew everything was going to be ok. Still after seeing my mother paralyzed to stop seizures, intubated to continue breathing, watching my grandpa and step-dad cry and seeing even my oldest brother cry I still had a small flame of hope. Indeed it was small almost microscopic at the time it was still there. Even after hearing that my mom had a serious brain infection and she had to be flown to Billings, going in to see her and whisper to an unconscious mother that I loved her and finally watching a helicopter fly, her away from all of us to save her life. I will never forget that night. The night my life changed. The night I watched my mother paralyzed and unconscious flown high into the night, I sought comfort in my big brother, instead of anyone else in the world. The night I realized that my life wasn’t an easy road to follow; it was a curvy and bumpy one. Even the next day, waiting for the news mom was out of surgery, going to see her with a tube in her throat and not being able to talk to us I still felt that hope, deep down in my heart I knew she was going to be okay. I knew that she was going to survive. That she was going to try her hardest for us. Not for herself but for us, her kids, her family and friends.

            After that night things seemed to look up. If at this moment you are thinking that this was over you are very wrong. Another trip to the E.R. told us there was more swelling in my mom’s head. The next morning she was again life flighted but this time to Colorado. Finally she came home, just in time for my brothers 18^th birthday. For the rest of the summer she was fine until recently. She couldn’t get out of bed. The doctors had to start at ground zero and again they are baffled. It’s weird to think of my mom as a medical mystery but she has doctors in three hospitals stumped.

            This summer I learned a very important lesson. I realized that the strongest people in your life can falter. Even the healthiest person can go from 100 mile per hour to 0 miles per hour instantly. I didn’t want to learn that but I did and I am continually learning from that. Every day is a story with bad endings and good endings. May 27^th told me a dreadful, horror story about my mother having a seizure and being life lighted away and not being able to remember 24 hours of her life but June 2^nd told me a relieved, joyful story about my mom coming home from Billings for my brother’s high school graduation. The summer of 2012 told me life is full of the unexpected.

S artwork at the beach.