I had an interesting interaction a while back. It was a bit of a learning experience, so I’ll share it here: 

Little man had a virus right before Christmas, and since he had a fever above 100.4, we had to take him to the ER to be checked for a blood infection. He ended up needing antibiotics, so he had to be admitted, and since his doctors are at Comer, we needed to be transported from Edward (where we went to the ER since it’s 10 minutes away) to Comer on the southside of Chicago. As a point of interest, there also happened to be a snow storm that day. Just for a little added fun. 

He was SICK. He looked really mopey and lethargic. But we knew what it was and what was going on, so at least from my perspective, I wasn’t experiencing anything close to the kind of fear I’d felt when all of this was beginning. Riding in an ambulance was, of course, reminiscent of the first days of this illness, but the details of our circumstances were really different, so I felt it was more of an annoyance that we had to ride in this vehicle that insurance would not be paying for. I was, at the start, just wishing we could’ve driven ourselves. 

He and I got in the ambulance, and google was telling me that it would take over an hour because of traffic, which was understandable given the time of day and the weather. Then we got on the road. We were traveling along, and I was trying to be quiet and was desperately hoping Little Man would just sleep. The EMT in the back with us, who was a very kind woman, was also very chatty. She had some legitimate questions to ask since he was in her care, but then she just KEPT TALKING. My hints about hoping he would sleep on the ride and so on did nothing to keep her quiet. 

Then I saw the driver open his window and reach for something on the windshield. And I watched the windshield wiper fly off. Just all the way off. The driver stayed calm and pulled over (thankfully we weren’t on the highway yet), and he ran off to find it in the median. We sat there pulled over while he tried to reattach it, and I just did my best to stay calm. He ended up replacing it with the passenger side wiper, and the EMT and driver had a whole conversation about the inspection they’d done in the morning, knowing bad weather was coming, etc. All of this would’ve been sort of amusing if my sick child hadn’t also been along for the ride in the snow storm. We just needed to get there.

We got going again in relative quiet, when the EMT lady got a text that made her draw a quick breath, and then she sort of started to cry. I didn’t ask what was wrong. I’d like to say that again. I did not ask. She still felt she should apologize for showing some emotions, I guess, and then she told me – I am not making this up, this is what she said – “I just found out my dad has decided to die.” 

Um. What? 

So what on earth was I supposed to say to that? I didn’t feel I could very well say to her, “Please don’t tell me any more of this story because I would like to sit here quietly so my sick child can sleep. I said I was sorry, and then I’m pretty sure I said, “What, like right now?” like an idiot. But honestly I did not expect anything close to this kind of conversation, and I’m not great at thinking on my feet under good conditions, let alone those we were in at that moment. 

Turns out, her father has been battling cancer and decided he didn’t want to fight anymore. Amazing freaking choice of life circumstances to share in front of a CHILD WHO IS CURRENTLY BATTLING CANCER. Yes, fine, the two forms of the disease are different. My sweet guy is almost through his treatment, when her aging father had a more aggressive form and didn’t have a great prognosis to start, all of which she explained to me at length as we drove slowly down the highway in diminishing visibility during a snowstorm. 

It took us two hours to get there, a drive that on a good day takes us 45 minutes. Clearly this wasn’t a good day. I learned a ton about this woman and her family. Just so much. Apparently she felt she already knew what she needed to know about me. I have never been so relieved to arrive at a hospital. My poor sick baby hadn’t slept at all.

I mentioned lessons I learned. Here you go:

• I was more worried about what this woman thought of me than I was about the well-being of my son. I feel like that’s pretty screwed up, and he shouldn’t have had to hear that story. I should’ve said as much. I have compassion for her and her grief, but I also recognize that she could’ve perhaps waited an hour to process it with someone else, who would’ve been in a better position to help her. I didn’t want to have even the slightest of confrontations with her to set a boundary because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings or make her not like me. Since we’re such deep and personal friends now. JK I’ll never see her again.

• I could’ve set the boundary from the very beginning and not given the opening. I wasn’t in a place to want to chat. I was tired and worried and generally not wanting to think. And I wanted it to be quiet enough that my little sicko could sleep. I generally assume that other people pick up on signals, and I need to realize that they just don’t. I could’ve said calmly and without any anger in my voice that I’d like for him to sleep. If I had set that boundary in moment one, the dying dad story probably never would’ve happened. I mean, it still might’ve because who knows what she would’ve said, but at least some of the chatter would’ve been avoided.

• I’m different now than I was at the beginning of this. I’m a changed person wired in new ways, and that’s ok. I don’t know exactly how I’m different in every aspect, but I probably wouldn’t have seen anything wrong or learned anything from this interaction before. I’m more protective of myself and my family for sure. Now I just need to learn to act on these new feelings in the moment.

Thank goodness we’re through the holidays and the viruses for the time being, and hopefully I won’t need to test my new boundary-setting skills anytime soon. But I’ll be ready for it if I do.