Family Tragedy II

That week in the PICU was nothing but questions.

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Medical questions: What exactly were Elijah's injuries? Will those injuries leave any permanent damage? Is there any way these injuries could have been sustained by something other than shaking? How long will he be in the hospital? Is this continual vomiting due to the injury or just because he's always barfy? How long will this IV be stuck to his foot? How much pain is he in?

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Department of Social Services questions: Where is Elijah going to go? Will they just allow Claire to take him, or will he be put into the foster system? Will he and Claire be allowed to stay with us in our home? How long before everybody's names will be cleared and removed from the "suspect" list? When will the state allow Claire to go back home to Nevada? When, if ever, will Elijah be reunified with his parents?

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And legal questions: Since nobody is accepting blame, how will they find out who did this? And when they do, what will the punishment be? Who is going to jail? How long is this whole process going to take? And of course, the most haunting questions of all: Who did this to our sweet little baby? Who could possibly have been so angry as to take it out on an innocent, helpless infant? Why? Why?? Why???

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And so began the overwhelming onslaught of medical, legal, and DCFS workers that were to be involved in a case surrounding a blue-eyed, bald 12 pound baby boy.

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In the hospital Elijah was seen by several specialists. The neurosurgeon and pediatric neurologist, along with the opthamologist, determined that Elijah's brain injuries involved an acute subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhaging, and abnormal EEG results unrelated to the subdural hematoma, but possibly hailing back to a previous injury. Previous injury?!?! The CAT scans confirmed the existence of a previously broken clavicle. Further examinations were to reveal that he had most likely suffered a broken rib at some point in time as well.

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Each and every specialist agreed that these injuries could only have been deliberately inflicted, but that none of these were life-threatening, and we would only know about any permanent damage as the baby grew up, keeping a close eye on those developmental milestones.

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Our most immediate worry that never left our minds for a second then was that DCFS would not be able to approve Claire to be his caretaker in time, and that he would be put into the foster system. The initial workers DCFS assigned to the case did not make us any promises to give us a clear idea of what was to happen, so those first few days were nerve racking.
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Finally, Elijah's case was assigned to his current social worker. She saw how crucial it was for him to stay out of the system and stay within the family. She did everything in her power to keep the process rolling in a timely manner, and at 5:00 on Friday afternoon, just before Elijah was released from the hospital, she brought the paperwork granting Claire permission to be Elijah's caretaker. She also pulled some strings and made it possible for Claire to stay with her in-laws about a half hour away from our house since our house had not yet been cleared by DCFS, nor had we as we were involved in caring for Elijah within a few days previous to his injuries.

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After leaving the hospital, Claire and I stopped at Gelson's with our grandson to pick up a few things they needed. As I pushed him around in the cart following Claire through the aisles we mused at how surreal it all was. . . we would never have guessed when we first became friends in junior high, nor when we first got married, nor when we agreed to end our marriage, that we would be further involved together in such unimaginable circumstances.

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