Ashes to Ashes

Recently, I started following the story of Joey and Rory Feek, better known as the married country duo Joey+Rory. I had never heard of these people until they were thrust into the spotlight after Joey was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Even then, I continued to scroll past the headlines until I saw an extremely heartbreaking picture. It was an overhead shot of a very weak and frail Joey, lying in a hospital bed with her young 18-month-old daughter in her arms. I froze. My heart sank. I felt a knot in my throat and tears began to well up in my eyes.

It’s not that I didn’t care before. But I didn’t know this woman, so it didn’t touch me in a personal way. But now, we had something in common. Something I could relate to. She was a mother of a young child. She was my age and was supposed to have her whole life in front of her. But unfortunately, she was dying. I imagined what that would feel like if it was me. How would I cope knowing that I was leaving behind my family. Especially children young enough to not even remember me, except through pictures and stories told by other people.

I started following Joey’s story. Reading her husband’s blog. It broke my heart to hear how much she longed to make it through Christmas. Thankfully she did. But she knows it will most likely be her last. Her last Christmas with her child. Then her next goal was to make it to the New Year. She has. But she is now in great pain and her husband says she is ready to go “home.”

I keep thinking about the tragedy of this, because it could happen to any of us. I don’t like to think of it, but it reminds me of my own near death experience. I was giving birth to my oldest son. I had gone into a hard, painful labor and rushed to the hospital. I was already 8 cm dilated when I arrived. The nurse let me labor for an hour or two more, but as time progressed, she didn’t like what she saw on the monitor. There were uncomfortable pauses with his heart rate. Suddenly, the doctor was being summoned and I was whisked away for an emergency C-section.

They were so rushed that my husband didn’t even get to sit down to hold my hand before they started cutting. My son was delivered soon after. He was healthy, beautiful and screaming his head off! I began to cry tears of joy and relief at his safe arrival. But within minutes, I felt extremely weak. So very weak. I broke out into a cold sweat. I felt ill in a way I couldn’t describe. I was nauseous and lightheaded. I wanted so badly to get off of that table. I began to violently shake and shiver. I had the shivers before after childbirth, but not like this. Something was off. My breathing felt shallow and I struggled to take a deep breath. It seemed like they were taking way too long to finish me up. What was going on?

And why were they counting? I couldn’t feel much, but by the pressure it felt like they were massaging my uterus. That was new. That didn’t happen last time. There was a lot of chatter and multiple people were working on me. I felt awful. Like I was…dying. It couldn’t be. Not me. No, not me. Things like this don’t happen to me. I can’t die on an operating table after giving birth to the son I fought so hard to bring into this world. Not after everything else I had been through. But if I had to imagine what being near death felt like, this was it.

I squeezed my husband’s hand and quietly said: “I feel like I’m dying. Something is wrong.” The worried look on his face turned stoic as he rubbed my head and told me that I was going to be just fine. To think of our baby boy. Our baby boy. Would I ever get to hold him? Raise him? I worried so much about his safety during the pregnancy, that it never occurred to me that I would be the one to leave.

And what about my daughter? Did I go through surgeries and six months of bed rest to bring her brother into the world just to leave her behind? And my husband. We hadn’t even been married for two years. We had so much to experience together. How unfair this was! As I stared at the ceiling, I wondered if that would be one of the last things I saw. I didn’t want my last moments to be in some cold, sterile operating room. I couldn’t even express to my husband how worried I was. After all, we weren’t told much about what they were doing to me. But I knew my body was shutting down. No one needed to tell me.

Then my doctor rose from the table and had the most intense and serious look on her face. A look I had never seen from a doctor. A look you don’t want to see lying on an operating table. She grabbed me by my shoulders and looked me straight in the eye and said: “You are to NEVER go into labor again! If you ever have another pregnancy, you need to schedule a C-section at least 3 weeks early. This is serious. Do you understand?” I shook my head yes, but I really didn’t fully know what was happening. Strangely enough I didn’t ask until later. I didn’t want to know.

I eventually learned that I had experienced a uterine hemorrhage, the leading cause of maternal mortality. I had lost a lot of blood. I needed two blood transfusions just to go home. The doctors told me I really needed a third, because I was going home with hemoglobin levels at about 6. Normal is 12-15. And that was after the blood transfusions.

As if I had any doubts about what almost happened to me, 2 years later I was in the hospital recovering from giving birth to my third child. The nurse came in and said, “So, I hear you’ve had a uterine hemorrhage before.” She proceeded to tell me that doctors have a very short time to save a woman once that starts because you can die within minutes. She also told me about the pools of blood she’s seen on the floor from those experiences. I must have had a horrified look on my face because she started profusely apologizing to me and said she only told me that because I survived it. I knew she meant no harm, but I was glad when she left before she said something else to ruin my day.

I’ve never quite been the same since that experience. I look at life differently and am no longer naive. I am all too aware that tomorrow is not promised to any of us. I’m thankful for every day that I get to spend with my husband and children on this earth, because it is a gift. I wish that people like Joey Feek could be there for their families too. That brief moment in time that I thought I might not get to see my children grow up was a fear and pain I never want to feel again. Unfortunately, I will leave them one day. None of us get out of this thing alive. But I have talks with God often about when I need that to be. All of my children need to be married, successful adults, with children of their own. And I want to be old and cranky with my old and cranky 100-year-old husband by my side. Then I’ll be ready. Maybe.

Featured Image by Robb North – “Death and Life”