A & E

On Monday, I merrily waved the Midgets off to school after their colds saw them taking time off last week, and hoped to crack on with all those irritating pre Christmas tasks the serially skint need to get on with (mostly making presents, decorations and wrapping paper in a variety of materially and biscuity forms).

2.32pm : As I dragged out the vacuum to suck up the errant bits of glitter that I had covered both the wrapping paper and my self in, I received a phonecall from The Boy's school. I automatically assumed that they were phoning me to collect him for one of his many "heinous" crimes. Instead, they were calling to tell me he was a “bit” ill, and had a slight temperature. I went to collect him.

2.38 : I arrive at the school and encounter a monkey who has no idea what is going on. His temperature is raging (classic Mum test of kissing forehead establishes clear and immediate fever), He looks utterly knackered, and is struggling to stay awake (and as most mums of autistic children will tell you, sleep is an elusive thing for our children, and the desire for it indicates severe illness). He is saying that his ear is a “bit” sore (which for him, who was run over and didn’t cry, equates to levels of pain that I don’t think I have experienced). Then he coughed. That awful, horrible croup cough, The same cough that saw him put in a medical coma at 18 months old. I am suddenly more annoyed that they haven’t phoned me significantly earlier.

2.40 : Unable to get a doctor’s appointment until the following week, I go to our local Urgent Care centre, which is at the community hospital. Essentially, this is a walk in centre that does what it says on the tin provides urgent care. A cab is called, and we are on our way. The Boy’s breathing does not improve and I spend my time, rather pathetically and inefficiently, asking him if he would like a poo on a plate as a present for being so brave (the answer was no, as a poo on a plate isn’t a toy. His logic cannot be faulted, and you should not think in any way that such silliness on my part was due to my terror, it was to keep him awake and alert, clearly).

2.50 : We are bumped to the top of the queue. The lovely young nurse on Reception brings us round to start doing tests. The Boy is gradually sounding steadily worse. I am certainly not talking inanely to him, getting him to sing Christmas songs and do counting drills, nor am I getting him to look at Christmas colouring books to distract him from his clearly increasing discomfort at being ill, combined with the monitor on his finger checking his heart rate (which he says is making his finger burn), and the band on his arm checking his blood pressure. When another nurse comes in and starts to check his ears and throat with apparatus, he is crying and I am despising everyone that has ever walked the earth, bar The Boy and Lid.

2.58 : It is concluded that The Boy has tonsillitis, but that it is so bad his airways have swollen significantly. He is now struggling to breathe, and that bloody croup cough is back.

3.05 : We are in an ambulance travelling to our local “big” hospital, that has recently (as so many others) suffered from NHS cuts. It is horrific, it is horrible, and I am remembering a time three and half years ago, but this time it was at night.

2005 : The Boy has had a bit of a cold for a few days. He was hesitant to eat. The previous day, a Friday, Himself and I (then very much a couple) had bunked off work and sent The Boy to childcare.


On Saturday, he endured a morning visit to his biological father at the Contact Centre. He was lagging but still in good spirits. He didn’t really want to eat, but he co operated on all the things he wasn’t really allowed to have. As a parent, I was grateful that he ate anything so allowed it.


I can’t remember the time frame over which it occurred. It seemed that suddenly he was really struggling to breathe and was having spasms. I phoned the emergency doctor I have no idea why I didn’t phone an ambulance, who referred me to the community hospital. I packed a bag expecting an overnight stay. Once there, he was put on a nebuliser. It didn’t help. We were to be transferred by ambulance to a larger hospital.


The ride was horrifying. Much, much worse was to come. As always, we tried to find the humour (such as The Boy, having been curled up on me whilst we waited in A&E, calling for Himself, walking over to him and vomiting profusely all over him before returning to me). We waited for hours, literally. His condition deteriorated. They were calling in a consultant. I was told to keep him awake, even though he had, at this point, been awake for over 24 hours. Medical staff and students discussed us within our earshot. They questioned whether I had made him ill, if I had allowed him to swallow something and was covering it up, they spoke loudly amongst themselves until I stood up and said, tearfully, “we ARE sitting here. This is our son.” At which point, they drew the curtain so that we could no longer see them, but the material didn’t stop their voices floating across the crash centre.


As we sat there, a man was brought in who was having one of multiple heart attacks. He was panic stricken. We could still see him, we could see the fear in his eyes, and the only thing to do was to grab The Boy tighter and start bargaining with a god I didn’t believe in. Whilst there, the man on the bed next to my son died. We saw him slipping away. We heard his last words. We tried to avert our eyes as his widow and children were brought in, apoplectic with grief. And still we waited.


The consultant arrived. It had been decided that he would be transferred to St Marys Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, using the CATS ambulance service. They spoke of giving him a tracheotomy. They did not think he would survive the night. I could barely take it in.


I was to hold down my boy, to force the anaesthetic mask onto his face, to hold him and ensure that he gulped it down whilst he struggled against me, so they could incubate him. As I did this, he screamed “No Mummy, no” and did so until the anaesthetic took hold. Those were literally the last words he spoke without echiola for a year.


We were removed from the crash room, and sent to sit in an A&E room. The consultant arrived back in the room and started by saying “I’m sorry.” I vomited before she could continue. It transpired the apology was for her lateness in arrival - she had been at a party whilst my child grew weaker.


We didn’t hear the rest merely that he had been incubated and was on a ventilator. We went to find him, as apparently the staff thought that we had gone home and were packing him onto the CATS ambulance.


He looked tiny, frail, tired. He was covered in bruises where they had been unable to find a vein to inject him, and his nose was bleeding as his airways were too small for the tubes they had tried to use. In the end, they had used tubes for a premature baby as this was the only one that would fit into his desperately swollen airways, but it had taken hours to do it.


We boarded the ambulance, and there was my baby hooked up to a life support machine, which couldn’t monitor his heartbeat properly as he was too small for it. Amongst the beeps, I could hear a full ambulance siren, and felt sorry for whomever it was that was inside. And then I realised it was my life, my son that was in the ambulance with the sirens blaring, and I started to cry.


We arrived at St Marys, and were escorted to the PICU whilst The Boy was operated on. He was still in a medical coma, and had drips sewn into him to prevent him from pulling them out, When we finally saw him again, he was stripped to his nappy, had tubes coming out of every orifice, was hooked up to a huge number of machines, and had drips for everything for fluid, for food, for pain relief. The bed, although a child’s hospital bed, dwarfed him. I could do nothing but wait. Croup had taken hold and there was little I could do.


I read to him, every day. We played games. We sang songs. I washed him, I brushed his hair, I changed his nappies. I performed those small indicators of love that we as parents do, and never think about, that we complain about. When exhausted, I held his hand.


I swore at him and called him a little shit and instructed him that he was not to leave me on my own on this miserable fucking planet. I told him that I was his mother, and as I gave him life only I could take it away. I told him he was to stop fucking about and wake up.


He responded by letting his heart stop and having a defibrillator used to resuscitate him, on eight separate occasions. Frankly, he was taking the piss.


The time passed. During the day, I continued in everything that we would usually do if at home, with him a silent participant. At night, when I was chased away from his bed, I sobbed and hated. Hated that he was ill. Hated that it wasn’t me. Hated that I was powerless to help him.


I found out I was pregnant with Lid while he was in hospital. He was the first person I told. I whispered in his ear that I was having the “bubba brother” he was always asking for, and his hand twitched, momentarily.


I spent a lot of time looking out of windows. I spent a lot of time being impressed with the staff. I spent a lot of time feeling abandoned by my god, and hating that I ever believed in one in the first place. I spent those six days stripped of hope, stripped of faith. I was bereft for a loss that I had not yet had. I couldn’t bear the idea that I would have one child and lose another.


I knew that I only had The Boy on borrow, I knew that he wasn’t mine, but the idea of a world that didn’t have him in is one that I still cannot think of without a lump reaching my throat before the thought is finished.


There was a girl called Dorothy there. Her mother and I became close, despite the language barrier, in the way that people in such horrible situations do. Dorothy was in the critical care area. She was her parents’ first and only child. She died the day The Boy came out of his coma. I couldn’t look his mother in the eye again. I felt guilty, horribly guilty, and selfish, because I had bargained with my god that he could have any other child there if he let mine be ok.


Two days after he came to, we were transferred back to my local hospital. We were there for another four days. Leaving felt wonderful.


When we got home, he demanded Milky Bars and he was given them, despite my boycotting Nestle products since my college days. All the stuff that I had given such credence to seemed irrelevant next to the realisation that this person I was looking after, this person I had on borrow, could be taken long before I was ready to let go.

3.25 : I am remembering 2005, and I am extremely scared. I am remembering that terrifying time. I am remembering the horror. I am remembering The Boy being incubated. I am remembering the defibrillator. I am remembering Dorothy, whose name my daughter carries as a middle name, the girl I have never forgotten, and whose parents I stayed in touch with despite my initial disgusting behaviour.

3:45 : The Boy is on a nebuliser and is being monitored. He has various machines hooked up to him. He is croaky, but he does not have croup.

4.58 : The Boy forces me to sing, and then proceeds to take the piss out of my terrible singing. I alternate between wanting to laugh and cry, but try to do neither as I am sure I am on the verge of hysteria.

8.55 : We get ready to leave.

9.40 : We are back home, he is eating tiny amounts of ice cream and wiping the detritus on the sofa. He does a huge fart and, without a flinch, announces to the room that Mummy did, before collapsing in fits of giggles.

He's still not himself  - he fell asleep today at 4pm, and is still asleep now. He is drowsy, his throat is desperately sore, he's being a bit of a horrible bastard by spitting every five minutes, he is off his tits on antibiotics and Calpol, but he is here, and he is ok. The fecking wee sod.