My Son Is in the Hospital With Appendicitis 2,000 Miles Away. How Do I Mother Him From Here?

Note to readers. Here’s a story with a happy ending, first published back in 2009, when son Peter was 28 years old and living half way across the country.

By Barbara Falconer Newhall   June, 2009

Monday, Peter tells me on the phone that he has a big pain in his abdomen. He’s had it on and off for a couple of years. This morning, he emails to say a CT shows appendicitis.

Peter’s my son. He’s 28.

Peter’s in lives in the Midwest.

I live on the West Coast.

I phone Peter. He’s on his way to the hospital. I want to jump on a plane.  Peter laughs at the idea. So does husband Jon.

“There’s nothing you can do,” says Jon. “There’s no point.”

Being There

Yes, there is a point. I can be there. Being there is something. It’s not nothing. Most of the time when bad things happen, being there is all we can do. In which case, being there is everything.

Some years ago, Jon wound up in the hospital with cellulitis, a serious, life-threatening infection in his foot. Off he went to the hospital. Meanwhile, the doctors found a lump in my breast. A biopsy was scheduled.

Either one of these emergencies was doable. We could survive them (which we did). Or not survive them. By doable I mean, I could be there for Jon — unable to do much of anything. And Jon could be there for me — also unable to do much of anything. But each of us could be fully attentive to the other and the other’s plight. And that would make all the difference. That would be everything.

But as it was, Jon and I each had to focus on our own risky, potentially fatal situations; we couldn’t give each other our full attention. We couldn’t be there for each other. And that was not OK.

I check with Northwest. Flights going out today are $506 and depart every few hours. I don’t make a reservation. By the time I’d arrive in Peter’s town, he would be out of surgery.

My Son Is in the Hospital With Appendicitis 1,ooo Miles Away

I leave the Northwest website up on my screen and go pack a bag, just in case. How much liquid can I carry onto the airplane? I forget. How big can the plastic bag be? Will I need my work-out clothes? Should I take something half-way presentable so that I’ll have something to wear once Peter comes through this OK and there’s a chance to get together with Peter’s girlfriend Emily and her family? .  .  .  Will Peter come through this OK?

I go back downstairs to my computer. Today’s airfares have gone up to $589 RT.

That’s a lot of money. By the time I get there, Peter will be out of surgery. And, yes, I probably would just get in the way. I’ll just sit here by the phone.

Jon has to take a conference call for work. Our land line is tied up.

My cell phone doesn’t work in my office — we live on a steep hillside. I take my phone up to our driveway. It works up there only once in a while. I get through on Emily’s cell phone. Peter is comfy in a hospital bed and gown, she says, an IV in his arm. They’re waiting for the surgeon to arrive.

I tell Emily that my phone isn’t working well. “We might get cut — ”

We get cut off.

I go inside and wait for Jon’s conference call to end. My son is in the hospital. I may not be there for him today. But I am here.

All’s well that end’s well; here’s the follow-up story.  A few years after this crisis Peter married the girl who saw him through it: “The Mother-of-the-Groom Diaries — Snapping Pictures at My Son’s Wedding.”