 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
Sometime around noon Thursday, my day, my week and very nearly my entire life changed.
My daughter, Jessica, who has become known to readers of this blog as much for her abilities and courage as her for mental and physical disabilities, was seriously injured after falling in her classroom at Gretchen Everhart School for Exceptional Students.
From the moment my phone rang until we left TMH Saturday afternoon, it was as though someone else was in control of my life. Time moved swiftly and not at all.
Jessica had been in a prone stander, an adaptive device that allows her to stand, something she could not otherwise do. With no ability to or sense of balance, she fell. She landed full force onto the back of her head.
She cannot talk, so she could not yell for help.
She has little control over her muscles, so she could not grab something or brace her fall.
She counts on us for those things, and we weren’t there. Still, I have seen the fall over and over in my head a thousand times since.
Doctors said she suffered an epidural hematoma, at least I think that’s what they said. Frankly, those first few hours what I heard was more like sounds than words, like a dozen musical instruments playing a dozen different sounds all at once, pounding noise into my ears.
What I understood was there was bleeding between the membrane that surrounds the brain and the skull. If the bleeding stopped quickly and the hematoma stayed small, we would avoid surgery. If not, as the blood pushed into the brain, further damage might occur. Then she would have required surgery to drain the blood and might die.
The good news, one doctor explained, was that because she of how she fell on the back of her head, there was a good chance the bleeding was caused by a vein that would relatively quickly stop. I didn’t understand why.
It was all a matter of waiting and watching.
My wife was at the school at the time of Jessica’s accident, as she is many days. On this day she was getting ready for a fund raiser to benefit Gretchen that night. I was the guest speaker. I was working on my speech when the telephone rang.
The irony is that the fund raiser was created as a way to supplement funding for students basic needs, things for which our state seems to think it has higher priorities. My speech would have addressed that. Here is a link to it if you want to read it.
It was to be about how parents need to do more to force lawmakers to make children a priority, things like putting another set of hands back into my daughter’s classroom that would have kept her safe.
Instead, as the fund raiser went on, we were in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, by our daughter’s bed, praying – pleading, to tell the truth – for God to stop the bleeding in our girl’s head.
Many others in our community and beyond prayed for Jessica, too. Jessica’s teacher and many others from Gretchen Everhart were at Jessica’s side often during our three days at TMH. We received dozens and dozens of e-mails, phone calls and messages of support. We are grateful for them all, and especially thank the students and teachers at Trinity Catholic School.
Jessica is home now. By Sunday, she was smiling and happy. She laughed when I told her she just needed to learn to bounce better.
But I can’t help but be angry, too.
I’m angry at every politician that has failed our children by using a vote to repay a campaign contributor or friend instead of properly funding education. I’m angry at those responsible for cutting money that would always have teacher’s aides in classrooms of special needs kids. My anger is aimed at those who think of the needs of our children – all children – as a commodity to be traded for votes and favors.
How in the world do the Ray Sansoms of the world do it? I mean, it is immaterial to me whether he is guilty of a crime or just bad behavior. How do you vote to spend taxpayers’ money for an airplane hangar to benefit a friend while my daughter and her classmates use equipment that is old or inadequate?
How?
How do we even consider buying another building we don’t need right now for government use when we are cutting back on our children’s basic needs?
How?
I’m angry about every wastefully spent tax dollar that meant someone was not there to catch my daughter and break her fall because her too busy teacher had too few hands and was distracted.
Jessica is one tough little lady, tougher than I was, quite honestly. She appears to be on her way to recovery, though we are still watching her closely.
But she still can’t use her voice. She still counts on you and me to do that.
And I’m one angry daddy.
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