"I could feel hot, salty tears coming down my face. I sat and cried silently... I was scrunching myself up against the wall as far as I could. All of a sudden, someone from behind us taps on the guy’s shoulder..."
As mom nervously waited for Slade to wake up from his anesthesia in the patient waiting room, an unexpected blessing arose in the form of nurse Annie Hager.
"To the nurse who has been admitted to the ICU. To the nurse who can no longer breathe on their own. To the nurse who wonders if this is how they treat 'heroes.'"
"Some pain etches itself into your retinas. It’s beating us, pretty much every time. If you end up on a ventilator, you are not coming off until your heart stops."
