October 26, 2010 Our Nightmare Begins

On the morning of October 26th I had finally gotten some much needed sleep after not sleeping for two weeks straight. I turned on my cell phone and it had exploded with voice mails from the hospital wanting to talk to me right away. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach while I frantically tried to get a hold of the hospital. I kept getting transferred from person to person and panic set in. While on hold my call waiting beeped and I saw it was Dan calling me. I decided to hang up with the hospital and answer Dan's call. I knew if he was calling me it had to be important, he is not allowed to make personal calls at work. He asked me if I had spoken to anyone at the hospital, I said no I was trying to call them what is going on. He told me to stay calm, get myself ready to go, that my mom was on her way to watch Alexis and they had done a CT on Zac early in the morning and they had found a "large mass" behind his eyes. Dan also told me that Zac was being transferred to the PICU to be sedated and intubated and sent down for an emergency MRI and he might be having brain surgery that day. I hung up the phone then my knees hit the kitchen floor so hard that I thought my knee caps had broken.

I couldn't break down like I wanted to. I had Alexis to be strong for, I didn't want her to see mommy cry. I quickly got ready and waited for everyone to get to the house so Dan and I could head to Cleveland. As we drove to Cleveland it was silent in the car, an erie silence. I think we were both in too much shock to talk. I remember holding Dan's hand the whole ride I didn't want to let go he was keeping me strong. We arrived to the hospital and made our way to the PICU room #15 and when I walked in my world came crashing down.

I remember looking at my little baby laying in that crib with tubes down his throat and his eyes were half open and had a glassy look to them. I wanted so badly to scoop him up hold him and kiss him and tell him everything was going to be ok. But I couldn't all I could do was hold his hand and sob my eyes out. About an hour later Zac was taken down to MRI as we waited to hear the news. This was the news that any parent is never prepared to hear.