#663399Becca
2000.
I was the first to hold my daughter.
She didn’t cry right away. She was a bit blue. But after a moment, as the nurses cleaned her off, there came the tell-tale sign of a Xena, Warrior Princess-in-training.
I carried her from the Operating Room (after the emergency C-section) to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit to place her in a bed that closed up to become an oxygen-enriched box of clear plastic. Nurses went to work immediately applying leads from the machine that goes bing.
When I walked down that hall from the OR to the NICU, the feeling I had was one mixed of elated triumph and if any single person gets in my fucking way I will literally kill you. Welcome to parenthood.
We spent the next few hours wondering how we went from a regular checkup at 9am, a few weeks out from the anticipated delivery date, to having a baby at 1pm.
Specialists came in, left. The bill went up $850 each time the door opened. A Pediatric Cardiologist sat next to my wife’s bed in Recovery to tell us, in a calm, NBD-tone, that our daughter “has an aneurysm in her heart.” A Renal specialist told us about the issues with her kidney and bladder. More about low oxygen levels.
And all of that basically blew over within a day or two.
Oxygen levels came up. We learned that “aneurism” doesn’t necessarily mean “explosion-making hole” (she grew out of it, or… into it actually). After a couple of years the whole Renal-issue thing, which turned out to be “something to watch, ish” was completely gone.
All of that is to say, I have no real concept of losing my daughter. Nor do I want one. But it hurts dearly to read about the death of a daughter of someone I know.
The next few days, most of you who read this will be seeing a lot of purple. Changing the color of our avatars on social media sites is our black armband. But not black. Purple. Because it was her favorite. You’ll see the hashtag #663399Becca which will collect the well-wishing of thousands should the Meyer Family decide it’s time to click and read.
I wish the best for the Meyer Family as they make it through the next few days. Then weeks. Then years.
Take a moment and follow one of the links below…
The family requests charitable donations be made in Rebecca’s name to the Philadelphia Ronald McDonald House or the St. Baldrick’s Foundation.
