My Father’s Seizure

There is always that scene in cheesy movies where you hear a loud thud on a wood floor and everyone runs worried into the room and finds grandpa or someone lying there (in a puddle of drool if it were at all realistic) dying with the mouth slightly open and he (or she, or it) always moves his eyes up to whoever is crouched over him and tries to utter one last word, and sometimes he does, and then he dies. I always thought this was poopsy drama for soaps and A & E until one night when I was alphabetizing my vast record collection, I heard that sound.

My father’s panicky voice came raspily through the wall, “Dawn. Dawn!” And then a dull dead thud, reverberating through the ceramic bathtub and across the white floor. It wasn’t hard wood. It was linoleum tile. It was in the bathroom next to my bedroom and I heard my mother scuttling to the bathroom across the faded blue carpet, thok, thok, as her sock soles hit the padding covering the old creaky wood. And then she screamed.

I rushed to the bathroom door and looked in. There my mother crouched at the other end of the bathroom next to the toilet cradling my father’s head. His eyes were closed but his body was convulsing violently. She had her arm up under his chin keeping his head in a sort of chokehold and she was crying and she yelled at me, “Call 911! Alan! Alan wake up!” She was terrified. Her face was drained of almost all life and hope as she desperately clung to him, keeping his teeth from chattering and so biting off his tongue. His feet shuttered and his fingertips searched around where they lay. He looked so helpless and sick, pale as a ghost, sticky, cold, shuddering on the floor, a tearfall streaming into his hair from my mother’s cheeks. She yelled again, “Call 911! NOW!”

I ran the three feet to my dresser and dialed those forbidden numbers, those emergency numbers that are always off-limits in the suburbs where nothing remotely interesting ever happens and most people have the non-emergency police number on speed-dial so they can park their cars on the street overnight ten times a year, and when I put the phone to my ear I heard my own fast breathing come back to me through the earpiece. Dropped call. I had forgotten that that happened two out of every three calls I tried to make. My mother is screaming and yabbering in some panic language and my father is still an earthquake on the floor. I make a mad dash past the bathroom, through the hallway, to the living room where the wall phone is and pick it up. I once again dial the numbers, the feeling of awe spiraling through me as I do so, making me invincible, setting me apart as one of those code-breakers who calls 911. My fingers punch the numbers like icy daggers stabbing an endless wall of cellophane. It’s ringing, I marvel.

“Alan! Alan, talk to me! Are you okay?”

“What is the nature of your emergency?”

“Oh my God I was so scared! You had a seizure!”

“My father is having a seizure.”

“Okay. I’ll transfer you now. You have a nice day, sir.”

“What happened?” Strained, confused.

Three rings.

“What is your emergency?”

“My father is having a seizure.”

“Okay. What is your name?”

“Jeremy McCool.”

“You had a seiz…NO! Come back!”

“Could you spell your last name Mr. McCole?”

“ALAN! JEREMY CALL 911!”

“I AM! m-c-c-o-o-l.”

“Oh my God. Alan! Come back.” Hopelessness. Stirring. “Thank God!”

“Did he lose consciousness?”

“Yes.” I walked back towards the bathroom.

“Try to remain calm. Hold his chin so he doesn’t bite his tongue off.”

I nodded.

“What is your address?”

My father was dry-heaving into the toilet and then he spewed a thick clear fluid. His eyes were open. Wide open.

“Thank you, God! Thank you, Jesus!”

I gave her our address. “He’s awake,” I added. “He came out of it but he’s still shaky and puking.”

“Has he ever had a seizure before?”

“Are you okay? You’re all sweaty.” Nervous laughter. “You need a shower.”

“No. Epilepsy runs in his family, though.”

“Okay. A unit is on its way. The paramedics should be there within six minutes. Until then try to keep him awake and keep him calm. If he goes back into it, pull his chin up so he doesn’t bite off his tongue.”

I replaced the receiver and peered into the bathroom. My mother was sitting against the old wall heater with her arms around my father’s chest and she was smiling and trying not to panic.

“An ambulance is coming,” I said. “Are you okay?”

“Babe, can you get up? Try to get up. You need to brush your teeth before they can see you.”

“I don’t know. Ooooh…” More dry-heaving.

She used to make me brush my teeth before going to the dentist to get them cleaned. I went to open the door for the paramedics when they arrived and as I walked away I turned and saw that she had him standing, doubled over, but standing. He was rinsing his mouth out in the sink. My fiancé came and hugged me from behind as I let the paramedics in and she said, “You’re handling this really well. I thought it would be like the time they came for my mom. Remember? I thought they were going to have to take you away too.”

“I know. I got better, I guess.”

She hugged me from behind and put her head on my shoulder as we watched the men come and take my father to the sofa and set him down and ask him questions and we watched my mother answer them and they told her to let him answer for himself and then we watched them take him away on a stretcher down the front steps to the ambulance. I saw the red lights flashing like cherry prisms on the white door and then they were gone. The house was empty and still. Except for us. We sat down on the sofa where they had inquisitioned my father and she told me she was proud of me and I told her that I felt sick and then I got my jacket and we left for the hospital.

It turned out to be a severe case of dehydration. He was fine the next day.