Waiting And Praying
We were only halfway to Pittsburgh when I got a call from a surgeon at UPMC Presbyterian Hospital. They needed to relieve the pressure in Todd’s brain and wanted to put a drain in. Trepanation is a common procedure but wasn’t without risk because they had to drill through his skull to put the drain in. He needed to prep Todd immediately for surgery and needed my verbal consent. All I can remember telling him was he had my consent and please save him!
When I arrived in Pittsburgh, Todd had just gone to surgery. Now all I could do was wait. I don’t know how long it took, but I was so relieved when I received a call that all went well and they were moving Todd to ICU. I would be able to see him in an hour or so. The night was a blur. We found a family lounge that was empty and waited. At one point, I needed to be closer than we were to Todd but couldn’t go back to ICU yet. I remember sitting in a dark family lounge where people were sleeping and just sat and cried while trying not to wake anyone.
There was a man that got up and sat down beside me and asked if I just got there. He had been there for two weeks and slept on a cot every night that his family brought in for him. I don’t remember anything he said to me that night. All I could think about was Todd. Nothing else sunk in. However, as the days went on, we had many conversations with this nice man. We prayed for him as he did for us.
Todd was in ICU for the night and after seeing him, all I remember is a lot of tears and a lot of prayers. It was going to be a very long night.
