On the same day that Innocence drowned, 2 other children drowned in the same area. Innocence was the only one to survive.
On the day that Innocence was released from the hospital, a 13 year-old girl was brought into the same hospital for a routine tonsillectomy. But, routine or not, she began bleeding and went into cardiac arrest over the next few days. She has been declared brain dead by several specialists. Still,the family refuses to have her removed from life support and now it has been announced (as I've been typing this piece) that she will be transferred to a long term care facility.
The sadness we feel and the empathy runs VERY deep! However, the scientist in me no longer has any hope, for brain death cannot be recovered from. If ever she recovers, it will indeed be miraculous. Short of that miracle, I fear that this will be a source of further pain for the family in ways hard to imagine.
Rarely, something like the recovery of Innocence happens. Unfortunately, all too often, broken is broken and there is no repair available. And there is no broken worse than that which happens to your child.
I hope that the other members of the Loose Blogger Consortium, listed on the right, have happier takes on this topic. Nothing in me would be happier than being wrong about this 13 year-old.
We do bring to mind what is immediate experiences and I am not surprised that you have expressed this aspect of Broken. In my case, the word evoked the song, the song the experience that I had many years ago but the mind also brought up the immediate experience of Chutki with her broken leg and hips. In my case however, the tales do end up on more poisitive notes but I could have well written about irrepairable breaks too,
ReplyDelete@Rummuser
ReplyDeleteAs with what you wrote, our outcomes were very positive. I feel empathy for the other families, though.
Yes, I understand where you're coming from. I only hope that the outcome for the girl who is brain dead is a positive one or that her end comes peacefully and without stress.
ReplyDelete@Maria Perry Mohan
ReplyDeleteUnless there is supernatural intervention, I am afraid that her end has already come. That is what brain dead signifies, that there is no possibility of recovery. In other words, she is already dead.
So sad and tragic
ReplyDelete@Delirious
ReplyDeleteYes, the loss of a child is among the most tragic of circumstances in my view.
Wonder signs of the hand of healing close to home, but I am with you on the tragic circumstances of the brain dead child.
ReplyDeleteIt calls to mind the occasion of the Enniskillen bombing when an IRA bomb exploded near the town's war memorial (cenotaph) during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony in 1987. Eleven people were killed and 63 were injured. One man, Ronnie Hill, remained in a coma for 13 years after the explosion. He died without regaining conciousness in the year 2000.
If there is to be no miracle for the 13 year-old girl, I hope her family are not face with a similar journey to that of Ronnie Hill.
@Grannymar
ReplyDeleteRemoval of the girl's body from the mechanical support - in this case it is not life support, for no true life remains - would avoid the fate of Ronnie Hill. She is not in a coma or a vegetative state.