Back at the E.R.

The flashbacks have been bad the last week or so.  Whenever I get stressed, they come back.  Work has been particularly stressful lately so I wasn't exactly surprised at their unwelcome arrival.

Yesterday, Jake hurt his finger at school, and ended up with seven stitches.  He was a trooper in the e.r. and went to school today with a smile on his face, waving his finger splint around like some sort of little foam finger, but you should've seen me leaving work like a bat out of hell when I got the call from the school that he was hurt:  full flip-out mode.

In my defense, the last time someone told me my child was hurt, my child died.

Rational thought should've prevailed as it was only a cut finger, and people don't usually die from a cut finger, but you couldn't have convinced me of that yesterday when I got the call.  All I could remember was pounding down my road, on the run, convinced Cory was waiting at the other end, crying, with a broken leg.

At the e.r., the doctor stitching Jake up asked if I would be able to watch or did the sight of blood bother me too much?  I nearly laughed in his face, which would've been rude and sorely misunderstood.  I gazed down at Jake's mangled index finger, and could see suddenly see Cory's bones and flesh,
quick little bursts of technicolor- Cory's face, Cory's head, Cory's arm, Cory's lips so blue...so garishly, unnaturally blue.  Once all the stitches were all made neatly in a row, top and bottom, the doctor took the little makeshift tourniquet off Jake's finger, making all the blood rush back through the tiny openings between the stitches.  I watched, floating away a little, as blood dripped onto the bed of gauze beneath, drop by lazy drop.  It had been so much different at the scene.

Last night when my head hit the pillow, Jake in his room,sleeping away the ordeal, safely tucked under his favorite blanket, I could only see Cory laid out on the road, Cory in the casket- her lashes violet, and makeup covering the cuts, hair covering the bulges and dents, Cory being turned over ever so slowly by the first responders.  I could actually feel Cory's hand under mine, so cold and wooden.

My brain is so tired.