The next sound I heard from him was a phone ringing. Then a voice telling me my son was in a coma and I needed to come to the hospital immediately.
The Emergency Room and the Feeling That Something Wasn’t Adding Up
I ran through the double doors of the ER gripping my bag so tightly that my nails left marks in the leather that I found later, tracing them with my thumb while I tried to understand what had happened to my family in the span of a single afternoon.
Andrew was already in a coma when I arrived. He was connected to monitors and IV lines and machines I didn’t have names for, and he looked simultaneously like my son and like someone I didn’t recognize, which is one of the most disorienting things a parent can experience.
Brendon — my ex-husband, Andrew’s father — was sitting in a chair near the door. His face was pale. His eyes were red. When he looked up at me, he looked like a stranger wearing a familiar face.
