“I will walk you through the path of fear and sorrow, holding you by your hand. I will gradually prepare you for what is inevitable, so when the day will come, your heart will stay calm, as you will watch him received the greatest gift one could get – eternal life.”

“Amm! Amm!” One of the worst things we had to cope with was a sound of Szymek begging for food and us saying “no” as he needed to be on an empty stomach.

“Amm! Amm!” From asking, to begging, to angry yelling, and finally ending with despair. “Amm! Amm!”

Seeing him falling on the bed with eyes closed, as he has no more strength to keep them open, emotions aroused in us. Emotions, you try to control, to have your mind clear. The anger mixed with helplessness, pushing you to your limits, as you would do all, just to end your child suffering. At the end, you know all you can do is just wait and watch. Wait for hours, as we needed to refrain from feeding him from midnight the previous day, to sometimes even 2 p.m. Each testing day the que of cadets waiting for their turn was long and not much we could do to speed up the process.

The reason for all that suffering was a fact, that cadets could not move during the tests, not to distort the results. Therefore those, who were too young to understand it, like Szymek, were put under sedation. And for an anesthesia to work properly, he could not eat nor drink eight hours before the test. Since nobody knew exactly what time the test will be conduct, we need to be on this horrible standby mode until Captain’s performing the test called us in. For us there was nothing worse than telling Szymon, that he can not take any food or drink. Telling our two-year-old child, who suffered enough already, that we can not do anything about his hunger or thirst.

“Ammm. Ammm.” This time with much weaker voice and tears in his eyes, while he was trying to point to the cupboard standing next to his bed, where normally he could find a sandwich, pretzel, or boxed juice. Now all was hidden from him, not torture him with the sight of the food.

“Just few more minutes. Soon we will go for a quick test and then there will be amm.” Mag tried to calm him down, which in most of the cases just made him even more angry.

“Szymek, your turn” Said the corporal entering the room. “As always please take a blanket with you, as it can be cold in the corridors.” Mag took Szymek from the bed, as he did not like to travel in it. And we walked to the elevator pushing his bed along the way.

Road to the testing room begins with a labyrinth. Leaving the elevator, we need to cross almost whole basement, constantly making right or left turns, passing by doors to either technical rooms or, lost in the depth of the basement, Captain’s clinics. Once, one of the corporal admitted to us, that after two years of working here, she still, from time to time, gets lost in this little maze. The final turn and we are at the straight, long corridor where at the end, on its left, there is glass door leading to the testing area.

Szymek never liked going through this corridor, especially when he needed to travel is his facility bed. Due to lose tiles, the beating wheels were making him nervous and he preferred to pass it in Mag’s arms where he felt safe. The look of this place was also not helping. Although on the left side there was a wall full of windows, giving a bit of natural light inside, old paint on the walls, dirty windows, and those loose tiles, were making an impression like we were in b-class horror movie.

The testing area was divided into two sections, waiting room – well known to many parents, and two cabins with the testing equipment. When we arrived there, we needed to wait for few minutes, for the previous test to be over and then they called us in.

The testing cabin is a huge room, with lots of equipment. Funny how all this new, high tech equipment was kept in the old, not renewed for years, building. They kept low temperatures inside, so that once everything will be turned on, the heat will not get to unpleasant levels. We laid Szymon on the big bed, and while holding his hand to keep give him comfort, prepared ourselves for the worse.

“Mrs. W we are ready to start the sedation. We will start with a small douse to make him sleepy and then once he will shut his eyes inject the rest. He should be sleeping for next 30 to 40 minutes, while we conduct the test.” When Captain finished explaining us shortly the procedure they started to inject the meds into his veins.

The nightmare of letting go, preparing you to your worse fear. Allowing you to get use to the thought of him flying to heaven one day. I saw it only once and this was already an image that hunted me for long, but Mag was expose constantly to it. From day one of our presence in the facility, she had to see how he passes away. And it’s not looking the same to just falling asleep, not with little scared child.

This one time, when I was present during the sedation, he was holding Mag hand, calling her constantly to make sure that she will not leave him. Looking with his scared eyes and hoping that she will end this. Take him far away from this horrible place and will not allow for any test to be performed.

“Mum! Mum!” Szymek was trying to call her when it happened. He started to lose his voice, it sounded like his lungs would fill up with water. Sound that was giving an impression, that he was drowning. Like he could not catch a breath. “Muuummm! MMMMMmmmm…”

He started to mumble, slowly closed the eye,  and soon silence is the only thing you could hear from him. Firm shake became loose, as his body begins to be flaccid. Our hearts started to pound and fear paralyzed the body. Is this it? Has he flown to heaven? We were nervously looking for any sight of life. His hands were still warm, and soon we could see chest moving. He still breaths! What is so obvious to a side observer, for us, for some reason was covered with dark cloth. We knew, that he was just asleep, but for those few seconds, those few seconds, which lasted a life time, we wanted to scream, yell for help, as it looks like we just lost him. We lost our beloved child.

For those few seconds, you can not force yourself to think rationally, you don’t think at all. Just allow panic to take over whole your body. As to all, after a couple of sedation, Mag slowly got used it. The routine and knowledge what to expect next, help her to cope with it somehow. But fear never went fully away. It was just hiding behind the glass door and waited for a good occasion to come back.

“We are good to go, you can release his head and hand and proceed to the waiting room, we start the test soon.” Few words coming from anesthesiologist, reassuring us that all went fine and Szymek just fallen into deep sleep. They hooked Szymon to respirator, to assist him during the test to hold his breath for couple of seconds. This was also part of the procedure. This was the image you see when you leave the room.

“I lead you through the dark times. Guide you, so you will not get lost on the way. As you are blind now, but someday I will show you the plan, I will make you see.”

The doors opened and captain came out of the room. “We are done. See, nothing to worry about.” Said a Captain with a bit of a smile on her face. “Please stay here for couple of minutes until he fully wakes up.”

So innocent and vulnerable sleeping on his bed, like all those things that just happened were just a bad dream…just a bad dream…from which you can not wake up.

“AMMMMMM! AMMMMMM!”