Guest Post

When a emergency strikes I often wonder, "how would I react?" Remember My post on us taking Davy to the ER. Remember how I said it was"GO" time. Haha, it was so much more chaotic then us just "go"ing. My niece, Heather happened to pull up as we were trying to leave. So I asked her about what our emergency looked like from an outside point of view. So Here's Heather!

I am going to interject here and there. I will in blue, she will be in orange.

Ever since my sweet cousin Davy was born, her mother (myaunt Ruth, aka "The Mom," aka my trusted hairdresser) has been a retired stay-at-home mom. Although she doesn't use it anymore, she lets the remaining family hairdressers use her garage converted hair salon. So, on Friday a week ago, I was in a great mood. My daughter was in desperate need of a haircut and she was finally going to get it . With her bangs in her eyes and her "bob" past her shoulders, I was almost giddy as we left for Ruth's house. We happily sang the whole 4 1/2 minutes it takes to drive to "Harper's House." Aswe pulled up to the little yellow house, we saw Uncle Scott and Harper outside. "HARPER!!" Wendy squealed as I unbuckled her car-seat . She quickly wiggled out to give him a open armed, running hug. I saw Scott and gave him a chipper, "HIIEEeeee! How's it' goin'?" sounding a bit like Harriet the annoying neighbor from "Small Wonder." But with each step I took toward the house, it slowly became more and more apparent that I was actually walking into a disaster zone.

Ruth was my first clue. She walked out onto the porch holding Davy. My smile started to drop as I noticed the look on her face. (side note: my aunt Ruth wears her heart on her sleeve. If she's happy, you know it. If she's having a rough day, you know it. If you called her house and woke her up(I literally sound like a dude), you know it. She can't hide it.) It's so true, I am not a good liar of my emotions. At first I thought Ruth's insomnia had got the best of her. Then I noticed Davy. Ruth was holding her over the bushes while she threw up over and over again. Not spit up. Throw up. When she stopped throwing up for a minute, she looked flushed and fatigued and beat. I stopped walking and my mouth dropped. I asked Ruth if everything was okay. "She hasn't stopped barfing since 2am this morning. We're going to the emergency room." Remembering my toddler, I turned toward the street to make sure she wasn't in it. That's when I noticed Scott. He looked completely different than 2 minutes ago when I had pulled up. He had the same expression as Ruth and wasin the process of attaching jumper cables from one of their cars to the other. Seriously, why did we not just take the other car?!!! We were not of sound mind. Wow. The wind was knocked out of me. WHAT can I do to help them? I thought. I managed to get out a "Can take Harper today? Or do you want to borrow my car?... I can take Harper for you." I ended up taking Harper for the day and Davy ended up spending 6 DAYS in the hospital.

I'll never forget those couple minutes when I really got to experience the weight of what it is like for my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Scott, having a child with special needs and feeling so completely helpless. I hope I was able to lift an ounce of weight off their shoulders, even for just a moment. You did, thanks. I'm so happy my little cousin Davy is home, healthy and herself again.