Reasons Like Seasons

The ER doctor was rugged, handsome, sharp. He looked tan like the rich get tan, not tan like those who work the land or sell their wares on the sidewalk. He was Greek god tan, I spent last weekend on my yacht tan. I bet he made the softball team swoon. I found it hard to focus when he was talking. "...going to push fluids and get him on some steroids. That should put him in better shape while we wait for the ambulance." "The ambulance? We just came in the ambulance." "No, the CHOC ambulance. They send their own people for transfers. We are just waiting for them to call us back." "A chalk ambulance?" I felt like an idiot and a moron. "We don't have a pediatric wing, so we can't keep children overnight. CHOC specializes in children, so you will be in good hands there. I'll have the nurse come in to get that IV started." I must have been staring as he spoke. Perhaps I didn't even blink. "Do...

At the hospital, the same giant men rolled my little baby out of the ambulance and into the crowded chaos of Sunday afternoon at the ER. Thankfully, we were wheeled directly into an empty room, a by-product of a call from the beautifully haired nurse practicioner from the urgent care who had called ahead to let them know we were coming. A pleasant seeming woman with a blond ponytail asked us to wait inside, then quietly argued with the EMTs as B2 sat quietly on the bed, struggling for breath. I held him and tried to stay calm. The rest of the ER was like a crooked slice of humanity sprawled out for view at its least attractive. In the waiting room, half of a softball team was waiting loudly for their teammate who had started throwing up after being hit in the head while at bat. In the entryway, an woman of a certain age in ridiculous shoes sat in a wheelchair with an ice pack on her knee, a likely victim of a fall. In the hall, an ancient man in a hospital gown stared blankly at the...

I never saw myself as an ambulance chaser, one of those poor souls whose livelihood relies on catching an injured individual in the hospital loading dock, but yet, there I was, running a red light behind a shiny emergency vehicle as it barreled down Barannca Parkway, as though my life depended on it. Despite the radio on and the traffic outside, the only thing I could hear was my baby, crying as the EMTs had shut the steel doors in the parking lot at urgent care, B2 on the inside, me on the out. In my mind, he was louder than the sirins. There was no red light in Orange County that was going to stop me from getting back to him. He had woken at two that morning, coughing as he tried to breathe. I gave him his inhailer, then we'd gone back to sleep, only to repeat the program at six, ten and two again. By then, he just wasn't himself, fussy and quiet instead of rampuncous, refusing to walk even the few steps from our car to the play structre when we arrived at the park. I decide...