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Year: 1989

The alarm beeped at 5 am. I needed to turn it off quickly so it would not wake my son. I had to be awake, showered, and dressed in less than an hour. My son was not blessed with a morning happy Mom. I needed that quiet hour to wake up enough so my son didn't get a grumpy Mom.

Dressed and ready, I went to wake up a child who loved the mornings. He was the happiest, smiliest, and giggliest when he first woke for the day. I had forty-five minutes of joy to get him fed, clothed, and ready to take him the few blocks to the lady who watched him for 9 hours a day while I worked.

It was a special time with my small son, as we connected and reinforced that he was in a safe, loving home filled with laughter.

My son was dressed, except for his socks and shoes. I sat in front of him while telling him to point his toe in the air so I could get his sock on. As I leaned forward, sock in hand, I found myself falling sideways to the floor. It took us both by surprise. My son laughed at Mom being so goofy as to lie down on the floor, sock still in her hands.

I had no idea why I ended up on the floor. I moved my body and pain like no one wants to ever feel shot through my body. There was no way I could get up or sit up. I had to bite my tongue to keep from screaming out loud from the pain. I had no idea how I was going to get out of the second-story apartment and to the ER with a child who was under two years old.

I knew I needed help and fast, as the morning was moving fast, and everyone I knew went to work. Luckily, I started work at seven in the morning. I needed to get to a phone. The apartment had two phones. One three-quarter up the kitchen wall and another in my bedroom on my nightstand.

My best bet to get to a phone and make a call was to somehow return to my bedroom and pull the phone down to the floor with the phone cord that was plugged into the wall. All this went through my mind as my son started wondering what was wrong. Why was Mom not getting up? He started asking if I was okay.

I knew the last thing that could happen was to scare my son. I could not have a small child getting upset. I told him I was being goofy. I made myself laugh and asked if he wanted to have a race back into my bedroom so I could use the phone to call Grandma. His eyes twinkled like they do when he is happy, and he nodded yes.

Lucky for me, my son crawled like an old soldier, using his forearms to drag himself across the floor. I gritted my teeth, rolled over onto my front, and said the magic words, "Ready, Set, GO!"

My son was in front of me, crawling for all he had in him, so he could win the race. I took a deep breath, gritted my teeth, and with my arms dragged my screaming body down a hallway, into my bedroom, and over to the nightstand. I almost passed out a few times on the way, but I didn't because I couldn't. I had a small life counting on me to make sure he was safe.

Once at the nightstand, it took ten minutes of fumbling to find the correct cords for the phone and slowly pulling on the phone cord, all while praying that the small plastic clip attaching the cord to the phone wouldn't come loose before I got the phone to the floor.

I quickly said a prayer that my Mom had not left for work early and dialed her number. She answered right away because back then, no one called you at seven in the morning.

Keeping the tone of my voice light and airy, I told my Mom that I couldn't stand up. I needed her to come get her grandson because I couldn't care for him in my current state. If we were able to get me down the stairs and into the car, I also needed to get to a Hospital. She told me she would get dressed and be there as soon as she could.

I now knew I had about twenty minutes before she showed up. I also knew I had to somehow unlock and unchain my front door. I had no idea how I would accomplish this, but for starters, we needed to crawl back into the living room.

For the second time in his life, my son beat his Mom in a crawling race.

I was now looking at a solid wood door with a solid metal round knob that was locked, and above that knob was a chain slid into a four-inch slot. The door had nothing, other than the nob to grab onto. No furniture was near it. It was my Mount Everest, and I needed to climb it so my son would be safe.

I crawled as close to the door as I possibly could. The only course of action was to grab the doorknob and try to pull myself up. Then, once up, I would have to unlock the door and pull the chain out of its slot. Right. There was no other way.

I made sure my son was preoccupied with a toy. I took a deep breath and, with every last bit of strength I had, I did just that to the sound of low guttural sounds coming out of my mouth while sweat poured down my face. Once the locks were unlocked, I fell into a pile on the floor and waited for help to come.

It ended with me spending a week in the hospital, extremely drugged up, sharing a room with a wonderful seventy-five-year-old lady who loved daytime TV. My son got to spend a week with my parents and his other grandparents while I recovered.