Flying - Michael Sheridan

I've called this story Flying.  I should point out that whilst we do travel a lot, this story has absolutely nothing to do with travel.  It is in fact, just a normal day at home.  I also think, before I go too much further, that I should reassure everyone that Max, is, and will continue to be, alive and well.  He will be no worse for wear by story's end.  I imagine if this story is ever made into an audio that a further disclaimer would be due now.  Spoken in a low tone, firm, and perhaps a little fast though still reassuring voice, no children were harmed in the recording of this episode.

The story starts with Max playing on the upstairs verandah.  This is one of his favourite places.  There is a hose and potted plants to water.  There are smaller plants which are good for uprooting and tossing over the rail to the garden five metres below.  Some very small plants can be tossed whole, including the pot.  There is also a rake, which he likes to use on the windows.  We replaced our metal rake with plastic.  And there is a brush and dustpan, which is perfect for sweeping up the piles of dirt that he has just taken out of the potted plants.  We likes to sweep too.  He also likes to pour the dustpan full of dirt over the verandah rail.  It's easier with a purpose-built container, rather than having to toss it all by hand.  There is also a bird feeder suspended just above the railing on a long hanging hook, which turns out to be just the right place to store the long handled dustpan.  And, there are the hanging baskets of strawberries.  These are about a foot above the rails.

I am sitting just inside the window.  Max is playing just outside.  He has pushed a chair up under a hanging basket and is picking and eating green strawberries.  I am having a text message conversation with my personal trainer.  This morning I went to a bicycle race.  I have been training for this particular race for months.  I came third.  Blake, my trainer, is happy for me.  I think he feels like he owns this win with me too.  And he should.  He has helped a lot.

I have been repeatedly telling Max to be careful and to get down, but to no avail.  He gets down and then goes straight back up. 

Max has spent the morning with Sam, while I went to my race.  On Saturdays, Elizabeth works as the doctor in charge of the emergency department at the local hospital.  Sam is technically paid as a therapy assistant, which for our purposes is a babysitter who works a little harder and needs to be a little more mature.  Sam comes every Saturday, so I can go to my bike races.  I had just enough time between getting home from cycling and Max getting home, so that I could have a phone meeting with my life coach too.  It's possible that I spent most of that hour-long meeting talking about the race too.  I think now I've been texting Blake for half an hour.  I'm pretty pumped.

Max continues to climb up and eat green strawberries from the hangers.  I am still sitting inside the window, yelling at him to be careful.

If I could imagine what it would sound like if Max slipped and went over the rail, it would go crash, scream, crash, howl.   First, the chair would move, then he'd be alarmed, then Max and his stuff would hit the ground, and then he'd be unhappy.  That is pretty much what is happening next, except that he doesn't actually scream until he hits the gravel bed five metres below.  Yes.  He just fell off the upstairs verandah.

I get up and look over.  I need confirmation.  I check that what I heard is actually what just happened!  Maybe there's another explanation for why he is not on the verandah.  No, distressingly.  It did happen.  He's on the ground howling.  I hurry down there.  I use the stairs.

I pick him up and hold him to me.  He is really upset.  He won't stop howling.  He's still holding the dustpan.  The dustpan is still full of dirt.  The hanging basket seems to have exploded when it hit the ground.

Immediately, I realise that he also needs a nappy changed too.  Since the nappy table is purpose-built for setting him down to inspect him, I take him there.  The room we call the change room is off the upstairs hall, near the bedrooms.  After we get there, I take the dustpan from his hand and put it in the hall.  He wouldn't let go of it before.  We can take that back to the verandah later.  I change him and check for broken bones at the same time.  Then, I let him down to see if he can walk.  That much has gone okay, so far.  But now, I'm going to have to phone Elizabeth.

"Hello", she answers cheerfully.  At least it seems she is having a good day.  Until now!

"Hi",  I say.  "I going to tell you first that Max seems to be perfectly fine now, but he has just fallen off the upstairs verandah."

"How?"

"He was playing with a hanging basket?" It's clear that she can see already how this played out. "Did he land in the flower bed?"

"No.  Around the side in the gravel."

"Oww.  Poor baby.  Did he land on the rock wall?" she asks.  A slight wince in her tone.

"No, actually", I say.  I am relieved because there were far worse possibilities than what actually happened.

"And the railing below?"

"Missed that too.  And missed the drain." I say.  A little in awe as I start to reflect.

"Is he hurt?"

"Shaken.  Nothing broken.  And he's walking around.  He's rubbing the back of his head.  I think he landed flat on his back.  Can I give him some Neurophen?"

I give him the Nuerophen, but she thinks he should come into the emergency department just in case.  I bundle him into the car with a sandwich, a drink and one of his leopard blankets.  The car seems to be calming. Fifteen minutes later, we are at the hospital.

I carry him in on one arm.  Not an easy feat now that he's twenty-five kilos.  He's clinging to my shoulder.  I think he feels safer in my arms.  He is still a little shaken.

There is no one at triage.  The emergency department door is wide open.  I spend a minute wondering if I can just walk straight on to the floor.  I think better of it and sit down at the triage window with Max in my lap.  A moment later the triage nurse gets back. 

I try to speak, getting as far as, "Dr. Elizabeth... my wife..."

The nurse cuts me off.  "Elizabeth has told me already what's happened."  And then Elizabeth walks out to triage too.  They talk about the file the nurse is creating for Max.

"Just tell me briefly what happened", the nurse says to me.  "I need you to tell me for the notes."

"He fell off the upstairs verandah.  It's about five metres.  I think he landed flat on his back in a bed of gravel.  He's been rubbing the back of his head.  I gave him Neurophen."

Elizabeth tries to take him from me to carry him through.  He's too heavy for her and he's trying to climb back to me anyhow.  I carry him in.  He's looking around curiously.  He's chewing a corner of his leopard blanket.  We call him, "Leopard".  The blanket is always personified.  Max used to chew Leopard all the time.  He hasn't much lately as he's got bigger.

I've been in here a few times to visit Elizabeth at work.  Usually delivering something she needed from home.  Occasionally, to deliver barista-made coffee, but usually I make her come out to the car for that. 

I've been in here once before as a patient too.  I had a near-death experience.  That day had started with me trying to go to a networking meeting for my business.  I'd got to the carpark and decided that my cold was too bad and I should go back home to go to sleep.  I went in give my apologies in person, planning to leave immediately.  The organiser, by chance, sells herbal supplements.

"Take one of these", she said.  "It'll kick start your immune system."  I'd had one before once when I'd seen her at another meeting.  It seemed like a harmless placebo.  I popped it and went back to the car.

Kick-start my immune system it did.  Thirty minutes later I was halfway home, vomiting, in a McDonald's car park.  I phoned them and the manager sent someone out with a bucket of water.  When I got home I looked in the mirror.  Then, immediately turned around and visited Elizabeth in local practice.  She gave me adrenaline four times and called the ambulance.  I just wanted to sleep.  Then I was in the emergency department.  The same one that I am now carrying Max through.  I am remembering my visit most vividly.  We now know that I am allergic to Bovine Immunoglobulin, and will have an anaphylaxis. In future I am to, check the label before allowing any more middle-aged women to use peer-pressure to get me to take weird drugs.

I am snapped out of my flashback by nurses hurrying through right in front of me with an enormous bed on wheels.  I am directed to follow it into a bay.  We agree I should sit on the bed and have Max sit with me.

Max is calm and taking it all in.  This experience is somewhat novel for him.  He seems to be moving on from the previous experience, which he really didn't like.  At least he is calm, for a few seconds.  That is about how long it is before an army of people turn up wanting to prod him.  Now he is howling again.  I'm sure it's just too much attention.

After much coercion, two biscuits, a sandwich, a glass of milk and a stethoscope of his own, he relents to an examination, partially.  But the doctors get enough to accept that he is unhurt.  One of Elizabeth's colleagues says that he should stay for three hours for observation.  I ask Elizabeth why.  It's in case he has a bleed in his brain.  It's unlikely, but it's procedure.  I spend three hours sitting on the bed with Max.  People keep bringing Max snacks. 

Max is excitedly watching all the people buzzing around.  He is enthralled by all the machines beeping and flashing.  He spends the next three hours doing two things: batting away any nurse that wants to take observations; and covering me with crumbs and chocolate custard smears.  This seems to further convince the doctors that he is unharmed.

One of the nurses asks him how his food is.  He says, "Yum!"

Then he says, "Happy!"  Happy is his all-purpose exclamation for fun.  Apparently he likes it here.

Eventually, Elizabeth comes and tells me she is going home soon and that Max and I should go home now too.  She can monitor him just as well at home. 

Yesterday was the last day of school before the five-week summer break.  School holidays are already off to an fantastic start.