More about Jordan’s recovery: where there is humor there is hope

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Frozen in a sepia photograph, Jordan and I sit side by side, he in his hospital bed and I in a chair pushed to his side.  He is talking now, but little of what he says resembles conversation.  I see his eyes dart from wall to wall.  ”Mom, where did you find this place?  On line?  This is a dump.  Were you trying to save money or something?  Why am I here?  Did I do something wrong?  Is that why you are punishing me?”

I laugh until I realize he is serious.  The doctors warned us that his withdrawal symptoms from the morphine-like drug he was taking could include confusion and even delusions.  I try to reason with him.  ”Jordan, we are in the hospital.  I know you don’t remember, but your heart stopped, and we have to stay here until you recover.  Do you remember anything?”

“What are you talking about?  I am ready to go home.  Why are you keeping me here?  Let’s go right now.”

The night nurse notices the commotion and comes to check on us.  ”Hey, Jordan.  How are you going tonight?”

“Good.  I am ready to go now.  Where are my clothes.  Mom, I want my clothes.”

He does not have any clothes at the hospital.  Everything he was wearing was cut off and thrown away in the emergency room.  We only have his coat and the contents of his pockets, wallet, keys and a few receipts.

Jordan pushes himself higher up in an attempt to get out of bed.  The nurse puts his hands on Jordan shoulders.  ”Whoa, there buddy.  You are not going anywhere.”

“Yes I am.  I have to go to the bathroom.”

“No problem.  Just do it.  You have a catheter tube inserted into your bladder so you can go right here.”

“Mom, what is he talking about?  I am not going to pee here.  You know I cannot do that.  Let me up.  Why are you doing this to me. I have to go to the bathroom.  I am not going to pee in the bed.  I would never do that.”

The nurse looks at me and warns Jordan.  ”If you do not calm down, I will have to restrain  you.”

This is killing me.  I don’t know what to do.  Jordan does not understand what is happening to him.  I come closer and whisper in his ear.  ”Honey, I love you.  I would never hurt you.  You cannot get out of bed because you still have tubes attached to you.  Please just relax.  It is okay to pee right where you are.  Look here, “I say lifting the catheter bag for him to see.  ”It will go right in here.”

“You are worse than the mom in Gray Gardens,” he screams.  ”I hate you.  I hate you.” More determined than ever, he starts to throw his legs over the bed.

The nurse comes back with an attendant and two belts.  The attendant holds Jordan down while the night nurse straps him in….one over his chest and the other over his legs.  Jordan screams, flailing his arms and crying.  His contempt seers my heart.  Needle in hand, Nurse Mike says, “Now, Jordan, I am going to give you a little something to calm you down.”   His nod assures me that everything will be alright.  I remain by the bed watching as Jordan finally drifts off to sleep.

Awaking the next morning, I find Jordan sitting up, smiling and talking to the day nurse.  All the nurses love Jordan, but this one is a little too perfect. Not one strand of her platinum blond hair is out-of-place. It is 6 am and she is in full make up wearing a color coordinated, tight-fitting nurse Jackie outfit.  Jordan calls her a wax doll.  He obviously not upset by the events of last night.  Probably does not even remember what happened.   He laughs and tells the nurse, “I am here because I have a bad cold.  I want the really good drugs.”

She smiles,   “Don’t worry, Honey, you are in the hospital where we always have the best drugs.”  We both laugh.

Next thing we know, someone comes in and removes Jordan’s catheter.  I guess last night made a big impression.  Then the nurse’s aid asks Jordan what he wants for lunch.  Our regular nurse suggest tomato soup and crackers.

Things are now progressing at lightening speed.  A tall-red headed man from physical therapy gets Jordan out of bed and puts him in a walker.  ”Okay, Jordan, what is your name?”  Seeing that I am confused by the question, the therapist explains that his job is not only to help Jordan walk but also to trigger his memory.

Jordan snickers.  ” My name is Jordan.”

“Good, what year is it?”

“2003″

“That must have been a good year.  Let’s try again.”  Jordan never gets the right year, which is 2010.

“No worries, we will keep working on it.  Look, lunch is here.”

By now, Katie and Leah have joined us.  Everyone is excited to see Jordan up.  We put him in the big arm chair and place his tray within reach.

“This is so exciting.  Jordan, you are eating.  You are really eating something.”  I am beside myself.

Jordan gives me that look….a look so incredulous that I know he is coming back to himself.  It is a real Jordan look.   One I have seen so many times in the past.  Leah, Katie and I all make knowing eye contact.  Then, in classic Jordan style, he says, “Mom, it is just tomato soup and crackers.  It’s not like it is sea bass from Tsunami.”

Conversation fills the room with light heartedness.  We talk about the theatre, about yoga, about, the weather and other wonderful mundane subjects.  Then Jordan looks intently at the three of us.  ”What am I doing here?  You are all way more fucked up than I am.  You’re the crazy ones, so why am I the one in here?”  We laughed until we cried.   He still does not know exactly why he is where he is but his mind is beginning to process.  His cynicism stands in stark relief to out tepid environment.

The story Continues. Climbing Jordan’a ladder to recovery.

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Blinking.  That is a good sign, right?  Sitting as close as I can to Jordan’s bed, I watch his eyes.  I am looking for signs for life.  When he does manage to drag his eyelids away from his cheeks, and I get a glimpse of what lies beneath, I wonder, “Is he there?  Is Jordan, the Jordan I know and love there?”

Our entire family and all of our friends are on hand.  It reminds me of an unveiling…..we are waiting for the veil to lift, the curtain to rise, the plane to land, and the words to come.  Will he speak?  What will he say?  Will he remember what happened, and will he know where he is?  I am reminded of the lyrics to the Carly Simon song,

Anticipation:

We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway.
And I wonder if I’m really with you now
Or just chasing after some finer day.

Anticipation. Anticipation
Is making me late
Is keeping me waiting.

And tomorrow we might not be together.
I’m no prophet; I don’t know nature’s ways.
So I’ll try and see into your eyes right now.
And stay right here, ’cause these are the good old days.

The plastic surgeons come to tell us they will operate in the morning.  They want to do it while he is still intubated because it will facilitate the anesthesia, and they are concerned if they wait any longer the edema in his hand will cause permanent nerve damage.  While the two of them examine Jordan, my daughter, Katie and I, speculate as to whether or not  either one or both of them could be gay.  We must have looked and sounded like two old yentas.  ”The one with the curly hair and the skull cap must be gay.  Look how well he is dressed.  Do you think Jordan would be attracted to him?  We need to keep them around for eye candy.  Jordan would love to wake up and see these two next to his bed.”  and so on.  It feels good to laugh.

Each of us, in our own way, dreads this surgery.  Will his heart stop again?  When they put him under, will he wake up?  Each step up the ladder of Jordan’s recovery reveals yet another risk.  Every day, we face down death.  We hold tight to one another and to our joint hope that Jordan will soon be back.

The surgery takes much longer than expected.  What does that mean?  Has something gone wrong?  Finally the doctor comes and explains, “It is good we went ahead and did the surgery.  The edema was, in fact, impinging on some of the major nerves in his hand. That’s why it took so long.  We had to suction out all the fluid and we wanted to be sure we got it all.  He has five incisions, some of which may leave scarring, but we can address that once he has full recovered.  All in all it went well.  The surgery nurse will bring him up shortly. He will be out for sometime so we will check back later.”  Deep sighs of relief.  Hugs all around.  Shoulders fall away from ears and hearts lift.  Together we are climbing Jordan’s ladder.

Two days later.  The real work begins.  Jordan is now fully conscious but unclear about where he is.  His confusion alarms us, but we remain hopeful.  Rebelliously he pulls the monitor attachment off his finger triggering the alarms.  Over and over again, one of us replaces it.  Squirmy.  That is the word I would use to describe the stage we are now in.  Jordan is irritated by all the tubes, the tape, and the restraints.  He pulls on the plastic tubing that carries oxygen into his nose.  His lips move in an effort to spit out the tube that runs like a snake across his tongue and down his throat.  It is as if he wants to speak…to tell us something.  His eyes plead with me, “Mom, do something.  Please help me.”

The nurse comes in to check his temperature and I ask, “When are they going to remove the tube?  I think he wants to talk to us but he cannot because his throat is obstructed, and he keeps pulling on the tape around his mouth.”

“Let me call the attending physician.  Jordan certainly is more active.  That is a good sign.”

Jackie, Jordan’s father, and I agree we both want to be there when the tube comes out.  Playing the waiting game, we reminisce, telling stories of Jordan, at four, dressing up in Katie’s yellow dress and the blond wig Jackie brought home from the theatre.  He created a runway in the back hall of our house and reenacted, lyrics and all, Dr. Frank-N-Furter performing “Sweet Transvestite” from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  At the time, I asked Jackie, “Do you think it is a good Idea for a 4-year old to go every night to see such a risqué show?”

“Oh sure.  Jordan knows the difference between  fantasy and reality.”

Not quite as confident as Jackie in Jordan’s capacity to discern difference between theatre and real life,  I told Jordan, “Listen Honey.  You can be Dr. Frank-N-Furter here at home but when you go to Kindergarten, he has to stay here.  No Rocky Horror Show at school.  Do you understand?  The teacher may not know about this show and would think it was strange for a 4-year-old to be imitating such a strange character.” He nodded.  It was never a problem.

When the doctor did come, Jackie and I held hands, watched and waited.  If you have never seen one of these tubes being removed it is quite a scene.  The doctor literally grabs hold of the plastic tubing and yanks it out.  It was so long.  He pulled and pulled and it just kept coming.  Gross, really gross. The nurse swabbed Jordan’s mouth and applied a lubricant to red, irritated lips.  I do not remember what happened directly after the tube was removed.  I only know that we all felt another step closer to having the real Jordan back with us.

Piece I wrote about Jordan’s 2010 Experience with Death

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He Died….

He died……

 

He died.

Leah said he died.

Or was it…

He is dead?

 

My son, my tow-headed boy…

dead?

 

Knees crumble.

I fall in a heap.

Linoleum.

 

I mean he did die,

but now he….

 

Now what?  I ask

What happened

at the Blue Monkey?

 

He fell over

Ambulance came

Paramedics revived him.

 

Heart stopped

in the ambulance…

he died again

 

Red

I see red

We are coming…

coming now

 

11 pm   to   3 am

Allentown Airport

Empty

We wait

He is coming back. Jordan is regaining consciousness.

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Watching Jordan lying in bed unconscious, intubated, plugged into every kind of imaginable machine, I practiced breathing in and out.  I laid my hand on his swollen deformed one.  The plastic surgeons had come by earlier in the day to look at it.  Seems its   inflated state is a result of  multiple injections of epinephrine in an effort to get his heart to start.  The chemicals are trapped in his hand and could cause permanent damage, but the doctors will not operate until they know whether or not he will regain consciousness.  Of course, there is not point in operating if he remains in a coma.  Wow.  How will we deal with a son who is alive but uncommunicative?

I feel myself tumbling into darkness.  I cannot bear to think of him living this way.  Clenching my jaw and sucking back tears, I leave the ICU.  I must find a quiet place.  I make it half way down an empty hall when I sink into a squat.  I drop my head in to my hands and cry out,  ”Divine Mother, what will I do if he does not come back?”

“Quiet, my child.  Do you not know that I love him more than you.  He is my very own son.  I am with him now.  I am watching over him.   You are not alone.”

My heart rate slows and my throat opens.  The pain in my chest subsides.  I stay right where I am and silently chant the MAHAMRITYUNJAYA MANTRA, over and over and over again. The words of Pandit Tigunait flash on the screen of my mind. “You must not tumble into darkness.”  Then, while chanting, I see them, all of them standing in a circle around me.  We are at Stone Henge.   Swami Rama holds a staff in his right hand.  He is surrounded by seers, teachers, men in long robes.  I am kneeling before them.  I feel uplifted, supported, protected and reassured by their presence.  I know they have come to help us. “He is coming back.  Jordan has a purpose to fulfill.  He will return.  Let go of all fear.  Fear is your enemy.  We are with you.”

I calmly slid up the wall and walked upright back to our camp on the outskirts of ICU.  Something has shifted.  I sense a presence with me.  My phone rings.  It is my teacher, Rod Stryker.  I had called him the day before.  He says, ” Sarla, how are you?”  I burst into tears and tell him what has just happened…what I have seen and heard.

“I knew you were not alone.  I sensed they were with you.  That is why I waited to call.   You know we are all with you.  Is there anything Gina and I can do for you?”

“Hold us in the light.  Just hold us in the light.”

Within minutes…mind you my sense of time is quite distorted…our lovely Indian doctor, whose name I cannot now recall, approached us.  Leah and I, Jordan’s two mothers, are standing side by side.  ”It is a miracle.  It is a miracle.”  His Indian accent punctuates the word  miracle.  We wait.  ”He is waking up.  We did not expect this.  His heart was inactive for quite some time.  People rarely return to consciousness after such long periods without a heart beat.  You must understand.  This is truly a miracle.”

I throw my arms around him, giddy with joy.

“Now,” he continues, “we must be patient.  It will take at least 2 more days for the drugs to completely clear his system.  Tomorrow we will take the tube out of his throat.  Once he starts to breathe on his own, his lung should fill out and we can then take that tube out.  One more thing.  We will not know until he is fully conscious if there is any brain damage.”

Another hurdle to jump.  We will do it.  I am confident he will be whole again.  Leah and I hug.  We must tell the others.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ― Joseph Campbell

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Who is not afraid of being overlooked, of being invisible in a world that demands stardom. “What do you do?” is standard repartee, the question most asked, the criterion upon which we judge our self-worth, how we value our accomplishments , and how we rate our success.

For the last 12 years, my answer has been, ” I teach yoga,” to which the questioners reply is usually, “Oh really, where?”  And I say, “Midtown Yoga.  It is my studio.”

“Wow, it is your studio.  That’s great.  I hear it is a great place.”

On January 1, 2013 my life will change.  I will no longer be the owner/operator of Midtown Yoga.  As I write and reflect on this transition I realize that, like my children, Midtown Yoga never really belonged to me.  With the help of my husband, Jimmy, and many others, I opened the doors to Midtown Yoga on May 1, 200.  Students came.  They lined up at the door.  Yoga was in the news.  Christy Turlington was featured on the cover of Newsweek doing a yoga pose.  Rodney Yee appeared on Oprah and two weeks later, came for a workshop at Midtown Yoga.   We rode to success on the wings of a media frenzy.

Yes, I shepherded the space.  I started selling retail.  The first year we sponsored a teacher training program taught by Cyndi Lee of OM Yoga in New York and 27 people signed up, many of whom became longtime teachers at Midtown Yoga.  I look back on these times with wonder and amazement.  I had never before run a business and I did so then by the seat of my pants.  I did not have a “business plan.”  I made decisions based on my intuition and little else.  For some reason, it worked.

I am so grateful to all those, teachers and students alike, who make Midtown Yoga what it is today, a living, breathing organism.  My work at the studio is done.  I will continue to teach and be a part of the community, a cog in the wheel, a leaf on the tree, a star in the sky, drop in the ocean, a grain of sand on the beach, a snowflake in a beautiful blizzard  a single note in a melodic song.  I keep coming back to the Ben Lee lyric.  ”We are all in this together.”

Today I choose, in the words of Rolf Gates from Meditations on the Mat,  “…to show up, burn brightly, live passionately, hold nothing back, and when the moment is over, when my work is done, I will step back and let go.”

The Four Immeasurables

May all beings have happiness and the cause of happiness.

May all beings be free of suffering and the cause of suffering.

May all beings never be parted from freedom’s true joy.

May all beings dwell in equanimity free from attachment and aversion.

Day 3  …I am writing my way back into the Light that is always and forever burning brightly in and around me and you.

January 3, 2010…My Son Died…We arrive at the hospital

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Jimmy and I round the corner and see them, our family and friends camped outside the doors of the ICU.  Apparently the regular waiting room is being remodeled and the temporary one is jammed packed with the members of another ICU family.  I take a deep breath.  We all hug and hold on tight to one another.  We are all in this together.  No matter what differences we have had in the past, ex husband, his wife, friends from whom I have been estranged, all here to love and support one another.

“I want to see him.  When can I go in?”

Someone tells me to push the button beside the door.  I do and it opens.  I see him immediately, lying in a tiny cubicle just in front of the nurses desk.  I laugh to myself.  Even now Jordan is center stage.  Odd how humor rears its delightful head even in the midst of tragedy.  Tubes, monitors, light, beeping sounds abound.  I walk in to find my son, in a coma, attached at every place possible to some kind of machine.  There is a tube down his throat.  They had to intubate him because his lung collapsed.  Even now, writing this, my heart is in the back of my mouth and my eyes fill with tears.  I lay my hand on his.  Oh my God.  What will I do if he dies?  I love him so much. My thoughts jump from one horrific scenario to another, and then I remember the mantra we just learned at the Himalayan Institute.  How ironic.  I have just come from The Institute where we have been chanting and meditating for days. I remind myself that I am prepared for whatever comes and I immediately start silently chanting the

Mahamrityunjaya Mantra

Om, tryambakam yajāmahe

 sugandhim pushti-vardhanam

urvā-rukamiva bandhanān

mrityor-mukshīya mā mritāt

There are very few mantras that stand on par with Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra (also known as Mahamrityunjay Mantra, Rudra Mantra, Tryambakam Mantra or Maha Sanjivini Mantra). This mantra is said to have the power to remove all sufferings, ward off all evils, remove diseases and bestow the aspirant with health and energy. And it is said that when this mantra is it chanted with great devotion and serious contemplation it is said that the knowledge of this birth and death cycle is revealed to the aspirant. And thus it helps in overcoming the fear of death.  (from 9 dozen’s blog)

Could anything have been more perfectly timed. My breath keeps catching in the middle of my chest.  I remind myself to breath.  I hear the voice of reason coming from the center of my heart.  ”You must be strong.  Stay calm.  Catastrophiizing will not help anyone.  Be here for Jordan.”  I look at him, lying there so innocently, not breathing, in a coma, and I realize that I am powerless over death.  I am reminded that Jordan does not belong to me, that he came into this world to live his life.  I am also keenly aware that some lives are shorter than other and just because I do not want him to die I should not try to keep him here.  Maybe he is ready to go.  Then I hear these words come out of MY mouth.  ”Jordan, I love you so much, but I do not want you to stay on this earth for me.  I want you to live.  We all do, but if you are ready to go walk toward the light.  If you want to come back, come toward our voices.  We are all here with you.”  Wow, did I say that?  Yes and I will never, ever forget it.

Leah and I agreed to take turns spending the night.  I ran home, gathered a few things and came back to do my first shift.  The nurses at Methodist Central were incredible as were all the doctors who cared for Jordan.  Everyone of them treated Jordan and all of us with kindness and respect and talked to us in such a way, that we knew at every moment, what to expect.  They explained that he might never come out of the coma.  Jackie, Jordan’s father, took that pretty hard.  It was hard for all of us to see Jordan lying with no affect in a hospital bed, but it was particularly hard for Katie, his sister and his Dad.  They had both seen him dead on the floor at the bar.  Katie had trouble sleeping.  She told me, “I keep seeing him lying there, in that bar, with all the lights on.  When do you ever see a bar lit up like that.  It was so gross.”  I held her close…my baby girl.  What would happen to her if Jordan did not pull through?  We will cross that bridge when we come to it.  Stay here, in the present moment.  You can handle anything that is happening now.

Thank God for Leah.  I do not know what I would have done had I been the one to stay with Jordan every night.  She had the courage to tell me, “I want to be here for you and for Jordan, but if I am in the way, please tell me.”

I wept and hugged her.  ’No please, I need you.  We all need you.  Thank you so much.”

So knowing that Jordan might never come out of his coma, we settled in to the hospital routine.  I spent every day, all day at the hospital.  I did not teach yoga.  We took turns posting updates on Facebook.  We sat on the floor outside of ICU and told stories, visited with friends who came by and tried to stay positive.  When the doctors told us they ere going to start decreasing Jordan’s medication in order to bring him back into consciousness, we were excited and scared at the same time.  What if he did not come out?

Still day 2…will finish this in the am 

My Son Died: The story I have been avoiding

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Riding my bike like a bat out of Hell with my mind racing, processing all the emotions flying around my head.  Midtown Yoga, Midtown Yoga, Midtown Yoga.  Then out of know where, He Died. Jordan died.  Write that story, the one that forever changed your life.  And right behind a flashing red light….Do not go there.  Things are hard enough.  What are you crazy?  Yes, no doubt, I am crazy, but I am going to attempt to tell this story. I may have to stop in the middle.  All I can do is try.

January 3, 2010.   I roll over and touch Jimmy.  ”I think that was my phone.  did you hear my phone ringing.”  No reply.  Then I heard it.  How could my phone be ringing?  We do not get service here at the Himalayan Institute.  I stumble to the window still, groping for the  eery light.  ”Hello.”

“Sarla, this is Leah.  You have to come home right now.”

“Leah, it is the middle of the night and we are sound asleep.  What the Hell is going on?”

“Jordan died.  I mean he died but he is alive now.”

I hear myself cry out and feel my knees buckle as I fall to the floor.

“We are at the hospital.  He is okay now….in a coma.  They do not know what is wrong with him.  He fell out, died at the Blue Monkey Bar.  The bartender did CPR until the medics came.  He died again in the ambulance.  Sarla, you must come home now.  We need you.  We all need you.”

” Jimmy, Jimmy,” I am screaming.  ”Get up.  Get up right now.  It’s Jordan.  Leah said he died.  He died.”

“What?”  Rubbing his eyes, Jimmy jumps up and helps me off the floor.

“We have to go home right now.  Go down the hall and get on the computer.  Find out when the next flight leaves.  Any flight.  I call the airlines and am put on hold.  My heart is pounding.  I am praying and saying my mantras.  Please god let him live.  Let him be okay. Finally I get a reservationist.  I explain our situation and beg her to help us.  She puts me on hold and the phone dies.  I am beside myself.  I have to start all over.  I call again.  This time I am crying, sobbing into the phone.  ”Please help us.  Help me to get home to my son.  Do not put me on hold.  If you do and the phone dies I will have to start again.  I do not have time.  If we do get cut off, please call me back at 901-270-5373.”

She hears me.  She really hears me.  I do not have a machine at the other end of the line.  I have actually connected with another human being.  I cannot remember all that was said, I only know that she arranged for us to change flights at no charge.  We did have to leave out of Allentown instead of Scranton and the flight was not until 6 am but it was a way home.  ”What about the rental car?”  I asked Jimmy.  ”We got it in Scranton?”

“We will worry about that later. Pack up and let’s go.”  We sat at the empty Allentown airport for two hours.   I watched the cleaning people come and go.  I practiced my mantra.  I prayed.  I visualized Jordan surrounded by healing white light.

We are boarding the plan and my phone rings.  It is Leah.  ”Sarla, they want to put a catheter in Jordan’s heart.  They cannot figure out what is going on.  His heart keeps stopping.  It is a dangerous procedure.”

“No, I cry out.  No.  No damn doctor is going to stick a tub in my son’s heart just because they don’t know what else to do.  They cannot do it without my permission.  Tell them no.”  I barely see the faces of the passengers seated in the aisles as I pass by. I do know they are staring at me.  ”We are on the plane now and will be home by noon.  Wait.  Just wait til we get there.”

I have no recollection of the flight to Atlanta.  I do remember getting another call from Leah. “It’s okay.”  she said.  ”A resident on duty told the attending doctor to check for Brugata syndrome.  It is some kinda genetic heart condition that causes sudden cardiac death.  They are not going to the catheterization.  When will you be home?”

“Looks like the flight is on time.  Our car is at the airport so as soon as we can get our bags we will head to the hospital.  How are you doing.? Where is Katie?”

“I am exhausted.  We have been here all night.  Katie and Greg are here too.  We called them when we found out.  They were at the Blue Monkey.  We all saw Jordan dead on the floor. She’s pretty shaken up.  They are going to take Jordan to ICU.  Come there when you get here.”

“Oh my god.  Why did you call Katie?  She did not need to see that.  What were you thinking?”  Then I catch myself.  ”Sorry.  I am so sorry.  I cannot imagine what you have been through.  I will call you when we land.”

Day 2.  Will finish this either later today or tomorrow.