"Mom-nesia", or, Of Pyramids and Panic

All of you nurse-moms out there will get this, and perhaps even a few of you dads.

Mom-nesia, for the uninitiated, is a phenomenon that occurs whenever some medical crisis threatens your offspring, instantly rearranging your priorities and rendering you completely ineffective as a clinician. Like when your 17-year-old son falls off the top of a human pyramid, slams into an inch's worth of foam rubber, feels OK for the first few minutes, and then.........isn't.

I was just leaving for my 3-11 shift the other day when the phone call came. Now, this almost-grown son of mine hasn't missed a day of school in three years; indeed, this is a kid who refused to stay home from school when he had bronchitis, simply because he knew he couldn't afford to miss a single day of classes if he wanted to keep his grades up. He never complains about anything physical, even when he beats himself up doing silly stunts on the trampoline or goofing around with his friends. And now he was saying, "Mom, I think I'd better come home. I saw stars when I hit the floor, and now I'm feeling kinda nauseated---"

Suddenly, I couldn't get to him fast enough.

Now, I pride myself on managing my family and personal responsibilities so as not to interfere with my job; in fact, it had been only the day before that I'd posted here about my perfect attendance record (no call-ins, no tardies, not even the occasional "mental health" day). None of it mattered just then, though. All I could think of was actress Natasha Richardson, who had also felt OK right after falling on the bunny slope, and then........wasn't. So I called in, and for once I couldn't have cared less who might be inconvenienced by my short notice. My baby needed me!

I don't remember how many red lights I ran or how many speed limits I broke on the way to the school, but the Lord must have been looking over my shoulder because I neither ran afoul of the law nor met with an accident of my own. All the way there, my thoughts alternated between cursing the teacher who had allowed the kids to do this stupid stunt in the first place and suing the school district for not having a nurse in the building to assess and treat my injured child. (I'm sorry, the office secretary is a nice lady, but she doesn't have an R.N. behind her name, she's not even CPR certified---what qualifies her to decide whether he's OK or not?) And to my surprise, I was no longer the calm, cool professional: I was merely another mom, terrified for my child and madder than a wet cat at the forces which to my mind had caused his accident.

I've been a mother for the better part of thirty years. I thought I was past freaking out at things like this, especially in light of being a nurse; in fact, I'm the one who always says "Nothing is ever made better by panicking".

It wasn't until I'd actually arrived at the school and laid eyes on my six-foot stringbean that my visions of throwing him in the car and screaming down to the ER on two wheels dissipated in light of the fact that he was alert and oriented times three, if a little shaky from the experience of falling from a height of almost 20 feet. He admitted he still felt a bit queasy and agreed to be evaluated at the local urgent-care center, but he was more upset about smashing his cell phone than anything else. He was diagnosed only with a mild concussion and advised to take it easy for a week or so...........not difficult for a kid who's more into Facebook than football.

I'm happy to report that six days after this incident, my son is fine, and my famously cool, calm exterior has returned. I'm still ticked off at his teacher, but he said that she is no longer permitting the students to form human pyramids in her gym class, so I guess some good came out of it after all (although I do wonder why it never occurred to her that Ben, or another kid, could have broken his neck instead of his cell phone). Better yet, this is another reminder to me that work is not the be-all and end-all of my existence on this planet.........sometimes, it matters less what we do for a living than who we are. And as it turns out, I'm a mom first.

Thanks, Ben.