The art line (a memory)

I am laying on my left hip next to Eli in his hospital bed. My hip aches from always laying on that side so I can face him. We are in PICU. We have a blue quilt over our heads. There are no covers over our legs. After weeks of use, Eli's arterial line has gone bad in his ankle. It's in an artery and it continuously monitors his blood pressure. We have two choices. The doctor can try to rethread the catheter, which will not hurt but is not guaranteed to work. Or the doctor can place a new art line. For a number of reasons based on Eli's medications and his present health, he can have no pain medicine for a new art line placement. It's not like a regular IV; it has to go into a main artery.
We decide rethreading the catheter in the current art line is the best place to start. But you can cut the tension in the PICU room with a knife. This has to work, but there's a reasonable chance it doesn't. I crawl into bed next to Eli and put the covers over our heads. I tell him that the doctor is not going to hurt him but he is going to adjust the art line. At 4, Eli knows what that is. I tell Eli his job is to not move his legs at all. That the doctor and the nurse and mommy and daddy are trying to keep from doing any pokes on him. And then I create a little world under the covers just for us. The bed is being adjusted higher and higher so it is a nice comfortable height for the doctor to get to work. Every light in the room is on. A small tray of tools and equipment is set down on my legs, so now I don't move a millimeter either. I start singing to Eli and it's just the two of us under the covers. It feels like the bottom half of our bodies are detached from the upper half, where it's just the two of us. At least to me. I sing one song after another so that we have something to focus on besides what is happening outside of the covers. Eli lays perfectly still. He doesn't talk or join me in singing. But he cooperates. He doesn't move. We hear the doctor and the nurse communicating quietly as they work, trying desperately to retain this line. I sing every song that I have ever sung to Eli and I start back at the beginning because it's not over yet. I keep us in this world, calm and far away from what is happening at the other end of Eli's body. I don't care what my voice sounds like or who hears it. This is the most serious task of my life. If we want the best for Eli-and the best is to re-thread this line-then my only choice is to make him feel as safe as he has ever felt, while in this cave of a room hooked up to beeping machines with a doctor working on him.
Eventually I hear the sounds of success: The release of breaths no one knew they were holding, jubilant conversing, and a few chuckles of relief. It may have been five minutes or it may have been five light years. My only awareness of time in the world under the quilt was the amount of songs I sang.
The bed is lowered, the instruments and supplies are picked up and my legs are no longer a table. I slowly pull back the covers and Eli and I reenter into his room in PICU.
It was a nice world while it lasted. We have succeeded in providing the very best for Eli. It could have gone the other way. We could be facing a traumatic fully awake and aware procedure. Tonight we exchange smiles, congratulations, and handshakes. We will revel in this victory, at least until tomorrow.