Losing my stamp room will be bittersweet

[Janel]

If all goes well, I will be �evicted� from my stamp room in a few months. Currently our older sons share a room, the youngest son sleeps in our room, and the third bedroom is my stamp room. My glorious stamp room � a grand step up from a tote under the bathroom sink in our first apartment, or the small desk at our next home. Another few moves and a larger desk and room, but I always shared the space. Finally, we bought a house with a room of my own. Completely organized with labeled totes, shelves of patterned paper, rubber stamps in the closet, every inch filled with methodically categorized supplies � even room under the desk for a sleeping dog. The thought of giving up this room is heartbreaking, although nothing in comparison to the very reason I am delighted to do so. The move from this room began nearly 3 years ago, the day he was born . . .

Our third son arrived on a snowy December morning, and we named him after his Great-Great Grandfather. A leisurely two hours later our wonderful nurse took him to his bath, and for the next 30 days we did not know if or when we�d ever be taking him home.

She quickly noticed he was struggling to breathe and gave him oxygen. His oxygen saturations dropped, and a chest x-ray showed one lung had collapsed. Hours later a general surgeon who had never performed the procedure on an infant, placed a tube in his tiny chest, hoping to release the air surrounding his lungs. It worked for a short time, but soon his other lung collapsed. A chest tube was placed on that side, and we waited. When I first saw him he was 12 hours old, had 2 chest tubes, an IV and numerous monitors and wires coming from his body. There were doctors and nurses everywhere saying things we didn�t understand, like �respiratory distress,� �heart failure,� and �we don�t know what�s wrong with him.� We were stunned, and we cried. We went back to our room and called our family. We took pictures, and hoped they wouldn�t be all we�d have to remember him by. One entire day went by, and a Medivac was called. His oxygen levels dropped steadily. The respiratory therapist never left his side, rhythmically squeezing the mask over his mouth to pump oxygen into his lungs. At one point, the resistance of the air entering his lungs was so great, the oxygen mask popped, and yet he didn�t give up.

The Medivac arrived from Seattle when he was 36 hours old, having been delayed for many hours because of the snow. By the time they arrived, he was too sick to transport without additional equipment � but it was equipment they didn�t have. And so another Medivac was called, and we waited through another snow storm. He lay lifeless on the nursery bed, a pale gray color. He remained on continuous oxygen through the night, but the oxygen saturation levels in his blood had dropped to just 9%. There was nothing more the doctors could do. This wasn�t a NICU, and we were one thousand air miles away from the nearest one.

The Medivac arrived, but the ventilator was no longer helping. And they quickly prepared to leave. The nurse placed my precious son in my arms for the very first time. I kissed him, and said good-bye, and the team was gone. Headed to Portland, Oregon � 2 states away. And I cried as if my heart would break. Little did I know the hospital staff cried too, for they knew they would never see him again.

That evening, at 2� days old, he was placed on ECMO, a heart-lung bypass machine, the most advanced neonatal life support machine ever invented. For 7 days the blood in his body was removed, oxygen added to it, then warmed and pumped back into his body. The doctors in Portland were giving him everything they could, and yet they were worried his condition had gone too far. Days passed, as we held his tiny hand, felt what we hoped to be a tiny squeeze from him, and we waited.

After one week he was well enough to be taken off of ECMO! One set of his corrotid artery and jugular veins were permanently and surgically severed, but he had survived � he had beat the 20% survival odds, and it was the happiest day! Two days later, still ventilated, I held him � the first time since before the Medivac, and I cried. He spent another 3 weeks in the NICU, with us at his side, learning how to breathe, getting stronger and attempting to eat.

At just over one month old, we were allowed to bring him home � with a feeding tube and lists of how to care for him. Once home, he slept in a cradle in our room, and we heard every breath, and awoke during the night to check on him.

I thought he would move into my stamp room at 6 months old, but two bouts of bronchitis and continual asthma-like symptoms by 5-months old kept him with us. At one-year old he contracted a respiratory ailment and stayed in the hospital one week � which had us on constant night-time vigil once home. More bronchitis, more breathing difficulties, more drops in oxygen, and constant monitoring punctuated his second year, ending with a 2-day hospitalization for pneumonia. We woke up frequently to monitor his breathing; and checking his oxygen levels and giving medication filled our days.

But as winter moved into spring and then summer, we soon realized he was healthier. We hadn�t seen the doctor in months, his oxygen sensor was gathering dust, and he was thriving.

He is now almost three, and every day is a gift for us. He is a fun, extremely happy little boy, who warms the hearts of all who meet him. He communicates with sign language because of a serious speech delay, and finally said �Mama� when he was 27 months old.

His older brothers are excited for him to have his own room, and ask frequently when that will occur. My answer is anything but simple � if he can make it through this winter with no hospitalizations or major illnesses, and his oxygen levels remain stable, so that we can sleep at night knowing he is breathing easily � then, and only then will I let him move into my stamp room.

I have no idea where my stamping and scrapbooking supplies will move to, or how they will be housed to be efficient and yet accessible, and still function as a business, but I will move. The hours spent in that room watching him learn how to stamp, to draw a picture with the colored pencils, and then cut it up into tiny bits of confetti on the rug, before I can grab it for the scrapbook, will become a thing of the past; and finding that the older boys have taken a drawer filled with scissors to make �train tracks� across the floor, will no longer greet me when I enter. The move will definitely be bittersweet � I will be sad to lose the room, which has housed my business for 6 years now � but it will mean that my son is healthy and well, and able to sleep on his own once and for all. And this is the most important thing in the world to me.

In a house full of boys, without a place to call my own, the Scrapbox would allow me to continue the craft I love, to document our family history and to mentally work through the emotional last three years. And it may very well provide a visual example to those same boys that being organized is entirely possible!

[Carol Lee]

Wow! Good luck!