"It's for you..."

I am so confused.  April is mad.  Tabby is confused.  I guess we were all madly confused.  WHY aren't we being ushered back immediately?  WHY do they keep asking me who called?  WHY have I been given no information about my son??  I STILL don't know if he's even here or not because no one has confirmed that he is here, yet!

A thought occurs to me:  Mikey must be dead.  I've never been directly involved with the death of a relative in a hospital setting.  In any setting, as a matter of fact.  The nurses are being too weird with me.  They are not really looking directly at me.  They are conferring with each other in whispers; they are pointing at me; they are whispering some more.  Oh my God...my son must be dead.

My terrible thoughts are interrupted.
"You are Mike's mom?  Who are they, his sisters?"
"Yes."
"How old is this one?" (She is indicating Tabby.)
"She is 13."

Information Desk nurse confers with Intake Desk nurse in hushed tones, but the girls and I can hear her, "She's only 13; should we let her go back?"

Before they are finished, April and Tabitha both turn to me and ask questions simultaneously:

"Are they saying Tabby can't go back?"
"Mom!  I'm going back, aren't I?"

But before I can answer, the two nurses make up their minds, "Well, I guess she can, the mom's here."

Good...because they would not have wanted to deal with April for sure.  I don't know what I would have done, but April was ready to fight with someone.  That would not have been pretty...there was a guard standing there...no, it would not have been pretty;  I'm not sure for which party, though.  Glad I didn't have to find out.

So, we were all motioned to follow Intake Desk nurse to the back.  We went like little ducklings following their mamma duck.

We turned left down a white hall (everything was white back there...white and clean) and past a couple of empty beds to the right of us.  There is a room at the end of this hallway.  I'm pretty sure that is where Mikey is.  As we get to that room, we are pulled past it.

"Ok, I have to tell you something."

OH NO!  I WAS RIGHT!

That's my brain screaming at me.  I KNEW something had been wrong!  I KNEW they had been acting funny up front.  My son is DEAD!  A glance inside the room shows me a body covered up with a blue sheet on a gurney...it's Mikey!  I recognize the soles of his feet!  Oh My GOD....my son is lying dead on that gurney in that room and this nurse is choosing to tell me this away from the people in the emergency room waiting room....oh no, oh, no, oh, no...he had sounded so alive 30 minutes ago.  His feet have dried blood on them...

The nurse is talking, "You are going to see a lot of blood in there...your son has been shot multiple times..."

REALLY!!!!  DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING TO ME AND MY FAMILY??? DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT YOU HAVE YET TO CONFIRM MY SON IS HERE; YET TO CONFIRM HE IS ALIVE; YET TO CALL ME TO TELL ME HE IS HERE???  AND NOW YOU ARE GOING TO TELL ME THAT HE IS COVERED IN BLOOD?  REALLY???????

My daughters are not going to put up with this tomfoolery any more.  They hear this piece of information from Nurse Obvious, and spin around and run into the room to see their brother.  I am left outside for the rest of the speech about how much blood he has lost, how much blood I am going to see, etc, etc.  Duh.  I understand what happens when a person is punctured multiple times with an object or objects coming at them at a high velocity.  Finally, she is done with her speech about that red body fluid, and I am released to go into the room.  As I walk in, another nurse comes up behind me.

"We need some information from you about your son's medical history and any possible allergies..."  Michael is conscious, he is over the age of consent, and at any other time, I would not be allowed to know about anything to do with his medical history.  And now you are going to ask me this?  I have just been on a roller coaster ride of emotions, and now you are going to get coherent information out of me?  Do you really think so?  Honestly?

"Of course," I hear myself say, "I can give you that information."

Because my brain has just flooded my body with relief.  My son is alive, and they want to know how to keep him that way during the surgery that is imminent.  Of course I am going to cooperate.  I will tell you everything you want to know, starting with how long I was in labor if you want me to go that far back.

Before I can go into any sort of detail, though, I hear, "You're wanted on the phone."  Oh, of course I can wait to give you this information.  I will wait for you to take this call.  I'll just wait for you right over here at my son's bedside - where I belong.

"The phone call is for you."  She is looking at me.  A phone call?  For me?  In the Emergency Dept of St. Francis Hospital? 

Did you receive a call from us?

We arrive at the hospital and park by the emergency entrance. That's where I assume he is. I just cannot believe that the hospital hasn't called me. Why did the hospital call "Mike's roommate's mom" but not me? Is Mikey that out of it? No, he can't be. He was conscious and coherent in the background. And when he had said, "I've been shot...I'm gonna die," I heard unmistakably in his tone that he was joking. That is what I'm clinging to, actually; he is OK enough to joke about this - he must be ok. [No, I wasn't thinking about his "steel balls" joke not even a year previously; he had been "hours away" from death at that time...I'm glad I hadn't remembered that tidbit of information at that moment.]

The girls and I walk inside the doors. There is a semi-circular desk right there at the entryway with the word, "information" in big letters right on the front of it. There is a nurse and a guard sitting there.

"I'm here to see my son. He's been shot and I was told he was here." They both look up, startled.

"Who are you?"

"I'm his mother. These are his sisters."

"Did you receive a call from us?"

Something is not right, here. How come they didn't look at their list (there is a clipboard of names on the desk), see his name and take us back? Why are they looking at each other with those weird expressions? Why would they ask me if I had received a call? Even though I'm STILL not really believing all that is happening, I don't think that in the emergency room, the first question after, "Who are you?" should be "Did you receive a call from us?" What is going on?

I tell them that Mike's roommate's mom called me on her cell phone to tell me about my son. (In retrospect, I'm sure that sounded strange. I didn't say, "Sheri", or "Cindy", or "Marvella", but "Mike's roommate's mom" - you know what? I still don't know her name!) When I say this, the nurse leaves the desk, and hurries to a row of intake windows to the left. She confers quickly with another nurse and that nurse looks up at us with the same weird, startled look. Somebody had better start talking to me. Nurse number one looks at us and motions us to the window.

"Now, who did you say called you?" Really? REALLY?!