As I drive down the highway, I feel like I’m having a panic attack. Not having any idea what’s wrong causes me to consider every worst-case scenario possible, and as a mom, those scenarios are really freaking scary.
After going at least twenty over the speed limit, and running every light and stop sign on the way, I make it to the hospital and run up to the front desk in a panic.
“Hi, I need to find out what’s happened to Kayla Peterson and Bella, I mean Isabella Browning. I was told they were brought in by ambulance. Do you know where I can find them?”
The nurse gives me a small smile and types on her computer. “Isabella Browning is the children’s wing, room 245C, and… Kayla Peterson is in the patient recovery wing around the corner, room 156R. It says here they were brought in for smoke inhalation.”
My heart starts beating even faster, my lungs feeling like they’re having trouble working. It’s suddenly hard to breathe. Oh God, my poor baby and Kayla. “Smoke inhalation? What happened? Are they okay?”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Unfortunately, I can’t answer either of those questions. It does say both are stable. If you want to head to the children’s wing, the nurse there can fill you in.”
I thank her and head to the children’s wing first. I hate that I can’t go to both of them, but I know Kayla would understand the need to get to my precious baby first.
When I reach the second floor, the sound of a child crying causes goose bumps to prickly my skin. Every mother knows her child’s cries. Not only is it the sound of a child’s cry, but it’s a cry of pain. I pick up my pace and rush into her room, and what I see, breaks my heart. There are what looks like two nurses and a doctor standing over Bella while trying to hold a mask over her face. She has an IV in her arm and she’s thrashing around crying. The nurse is trying to soothe her, but isn’t having any luck.
I make my way to her bed and lock eyes with my little angel. Her eyes are red and blotchy and filled with tears. Her cheeks are stained pink, telling me she’s been crying for a while. The doctor and nurses try to speak to me, but the only thing I can focus on is getting to my baby and hugging her. I wrap her into my arms, holding her close, and attempt to inhale her shampoo, but it doesn’t smell right. I can’t think at the moment what it smells like, though. She’s okay and that’s all that matters right now. I can feel her pulse and her heart beating, and that means she’s okay.
Bella sobs against my chest, her hot tears spilling onto my skin. I pull my face back a little, trying to kiss away those tears as I rock her back and forth the best I can from next to her bed, murmuring softly into her ear, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay. Mommy’s here.”
She finally calms down and the doctor begins to explain what’s going on. “I can’t give you the specifics of what happened since the police and firemen haven’t come in yet, but according to the EMT’s that brought your daughter in, she was in a fire.”
I gasp and look down at Bella to reassess her. She looks okay. I do a mental inventory of her body parts, looking for any indication she was in a fire. Her arms look okay and her face is perfect aside from the tear stains. I pull the bedding down to check her legs and everything looks okay. When I get a closer look, though, I notice she has soot all over her hair. I sniff her again, recognizing what I smelled is smoke, like what you smell when you sit around a campfire too long.
I bring my attention back to the doctor and he continues. “When she came in, she was coughing very badly. We hooked her up with a saline drip to make sure she’s hydrated and when you walked in, we were trying to get her to put an oxygen mask on to help the oxygen flow. We did a scan and her lungs are clear. She’s very lucky, ma’am. The man who saved her covered her face with a wet wash cloth, which kept the smoke from entering her lungs.”
I feel like I’m in a nightmare. I have no idea where Kayla and Bella were or why they were with a man who needed to save Bella. “Thank you, doctor…”
“Dr. Maven. Please let me know if you have any questions. I’d like for your daughter to breathe into the oxygen mask as much as possible and we’re going to keep her overnight to monitor her to be on the safe side.”