The Baby Emergency

by Carol Marinelli

‘He seems fine now.’ Ross put his hand on his forehead. ‘He’s not hot.’

  ‘Maybe he is teething,’ Shelly said, coming over and sitting beside the snuggled-up duo and casting a worried eye over her son. ‘Or maybe he’s just overtired.’

  ‘He might be brewing something, it might be better to keep him home tomorrow.’

  ‘As if I need an excuse.’ Shelly stood up and picked up her son. ‘I’ll just tuck him in.’

  ‘Take your time.’ Ross gently stroked the little head, a brief motion, a quick goodnight, but it was the way he did it, with such genuine tenderness in his voice, such genuine fondness in his touch that Shelly felt the familiar lump Ross seemed to generate fill her throat again. ‘You’d better take this.’ He handed her the rather dog-eared favourite book and Shelly padded off to settle Matthew, but for once even a little man made of gingerbread didn’t raise a smile.

  ‘What’s up?’ Ross noticed her frown as soon as she came into the lounge.

  ‘Nothing,’ Shelly said quickly, and then gave a sheepish smile. ‘He just didn’t want me to read to him. I shouldn’t take it personally.’

  Ross saw through her attempt at humour in a flash. ‘Do you want me to take another look at him?’

  Shelly shook her head. ‘I’m just being neurotic, the poor kid’s exhausted.’ Forcing a smile, she turned for the kitchen and Ross followed her through.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he asked as he watched Shelly pull out various packets from the freezer.

  ‘I was going to make something nice,’ she said, trying to keep the weary note from her voice. ‘Open a bottle of wine, you know, make tonight special. It’s not every day someone like you comes along.’

  ‘It’s not every day your kid’s sick,’ Ross said perceptively. Pulling out a loaf of bread, he held it up. ‘And as for making it special…’ Her kitchen wasn’t the biggest in Australia but it shrank even more as he crossed it in two short strides. Taking her in his arms, he held her for a moment. ‘You’ve no idea how special this is to me. I’ll make dinner,’ he said, pushing her reluctantly away. ‘You go and put your feet up.’

  Toast and wine probably wasn’t a connoisseur’s delight, but sitting with Ross half watching the television as they chatted easily, for all the romance in the air they might just as well have been in a five-star restaurant with waiters lifting silver lids on flaming dishes and pouring wine the second their glasses met the tablecloth. And when Shelly started yawning, her four nights on duty finally catching up with her, Ross capped the romantic night off perfectly when she came back from checking Matthew and found him lying in her bed.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Sound asleep, he didn’t even stir when I kissed him.’ He watched as she undressed, watched as she pulled back the duvet to slip into bed beside him.

  ‘Go and put your nightie on.’

  She shot him a quizzical look.

  ‘Or your T-shirt or pyjamas, whatever it is you wear when Matthew’s sick.’

  His insight again floored her. ‘You don’t mind?’

  Ross shook his head. ‘He’s the number-one guy in your life, Shelly, it isn’t a competition. Go to him.’

  ‘Thank you.’ It seemed a strange thing to say, words that maybe didn’t belong in the bedroom, but how many men, Shelly wondered as she tenderly kissed Ross goodnight and headed to her son’s room, how many men at the very infancy of a relationship would give up a night of passion, would understand a mother’s need, would be the one to instigate sleeping apart?

  Only Ross Bodey.

  At least he was the only one that sprang into Shelly’s mind.

  Slipping into the cramped single bed, Shelly pulled the warm body of her son near, kissing his soft cheek, pulling him into her. ‘Goodnight, darling,’ she whispered tenderly, laying her head back on the pillow. ‘Mummy’s here.’

  ‘Ross!’ Shelly could hear her scream echoing through the dark house.

  It was her third attempt at calling him, the other two strangling in her throat and coming out as dry rasps as they did in a nightmare.

  But, then again, this was a nightmare.

  A living nightmare.

  The bedroom door flung open and the room flooded with light as Ross flicked on the switch, and she watched the look of horror on his face as she turned her stricken one to him.

  ‘He’s having a fit!’

  Instantly the horrified look faded, replaced in a flash by the calm, efficient doctor she had worked alongside as they’d cared for so many sick children.

  Only this wasn’t a patient, this was her son.

  Shelly had already turned the rigid, jerking body of Matthew onto his side, but Ross crossed the room and took him from her, sitting beside her on the bed and placing the child across his knees, tipping his body downwards slightly.

  ‘My bag’s still in the living room.’ His voice was calm but loud. ‘Go and get it, Shelly.’

  Through the darkened house she ran, obeying his order without question, but her mind was at odds. She should be on the telephone, calling an ambulance, summoning help.

  She had help, Shelly registered briefly.

  Ross was a doctor, he knew best.

  Grabbing the bag, she stubbed her toe on the coffee-table as she dashed back but the pain that seared through her barely merited a thought. ‘He’ll be all right, he’ll be all right.’ The words were like a mantra, a steadying prayer, as she raced back to the bedroom.

  ‘He’s still fitting!’ Her wail as she dropped the bag was verging on hysteria. ‘He should have stopped by now, Ross, he should have stopped!’

  Ross didn’t respond to her cries. Matthew was on the floor now as Ross rummaged through the bag. He should be telling her it was over, that her little boy had stopped fitting. Instead, Matthew was still jerking, grunting noises coming from his distorted mouth, his eyes white as they rolled back into his head, and Shelly literally felt her knees buckle beneath her as she grabbed the chest of drawers for support.

  ‘Go and call an ambulance, Shelly,’ Ross ordered, his eyes never leaving Matthew as he undressed the rigid body. ‘Tell them he’s having a prolonged convulsion, that I’m giving him some rectal diazepam.

  ‘Go!’ he added, for the first time an anxious note making his voice waver.

  Strange, the things you thought of when fear had got you by the heart. Shelly had picked up the telephone, thousands, probably hundreds of thousands of times, but as she picked it up this time she realised just why those three little emergency numbers were printed there.

  The supposedly ingrained numbers seemed to have flown from her mind and Shelly had to physically read them to enable her to punch them in.

  ‘Emergency. Which service do you require?’

  How calm the voice sounded, how removed from the drama that was taking place in this very house. ‘A-ambulance,’ Shelly stammered. ‘Urgently.’ She wanted to hang up immediately to dash back to Matthew’s side to see if he had finally stopped fitting, but instead she had to somehow recall her address, somehow tell them there was a doctor in attendance, the drug he was giving right now as she spoke, to somehow give them a clear picture of what was unfolding to enable an appropriate response.

  ‘If you have an outside light, go and put it on now and open the front door. I’ll stay on the line till the paramedics arrive.’

  She didn’t say thank you, didn’t respond to the authoritative calm voice at all. Dropping the telephone, Shelly raced to the front door, fumbled with the lock and flicked on the light before racing back the length of the house, back to her son’s side.

  ‘He’s stopped,’ Ross said immediately, but there was no jubilation in his voice, and Shelly knew with a sinking heart why. The awful jerking had stopped but Matthew lay flat and lifeless. Just the rapid movement of his chest, the awful rattling noises coming from his mouth as he breathed showed he was alive. Lines she had never seen before were around Ross’s eyes as he examined the floppy arms closely, tying a tourniquet snugly around one to bring up
a vein. ‘I need to get some IV access in case he starts again. Hold his arm for me in case he moves.’ He made a tiny space for her alongside her son as he set to work. Rows of tiny blood specimen bottles were already lined up in a dish. ‘Tell me exactly what happened, Shelly.’

  ‘He woke up a couple of times, he was just grizzling but he settled straight back to sleep.’ She could hardly get the words out through her chattering teeth, and though she knew Matthew was past feeling pain, and she had seen the same procedure done so many times before, Shelly winced as Ross stuck the needle in Matthew’s arm. Only this morning they had been holding him, but he had been kicking then, giggling and playing, not lifeless, not pale and flat with a horrible grey tinge to his lips…

  ‘What happened then?’ Ross dragged her back and Shelly took a deep breath, swallowing back the gulping tears that threatened to overwhelm her.

  ‘Then I woke up. He felt hot. I was just getting out of bed to go and get the thermometer and check him when he vomited and then…then he started…’ She began to cry in earnest, squeezing the little limp hand she was holding.

  ‘Has he ever done this before?’ Ross’s voice was sharp. There was no time for sentiment, no time to comfort her. He was pulling back blood into the syringe now, then, replacing the cap on the IV bung, he started to squeeze blood into the various tubes.

  ‘Never.’

  ‘Apart from his Down’s syndrome, has he any other medical problems?’

  Shelly shook her head without elaborating.

  ‘Any cardiac problems?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Shelly wailed. Down’s syndrome children, apart from mental impairment and their recognisable features, often had other medical problems but till now Matthew had been blessed with good health.

  ‘Is he up to date with all his immunisations?’

  Shelly nodded, too choked up to speak, but as Ross pushed further she started shaking her head rapidly, hating the path Ross was taking.

  ‘Has he had his meningitis vaccine?’

  ‘He hasn’t got meningitis.’ The words stuck in her throat and she struggled to focus, watching with widening eyes as Ross attempted to push Matthew’s head against his chest, checking for neck stiffness. ‘He’s had the immunisation, he hasn’t got meningitis.’ But Ross didn’t seem to be listening to her. Instead, he was filling up a syringe with antibiotics as Shelly fought against the logic that seemed to be screaming at her, pleading internally for it not to be true.

  Somewhere in the distance she could hear the wail of a siren, and she waited with bated breath for Matthew to rally, for the stomping of feet running through the house, for the flurry of activity that filled the small bedroom to somehow rouse her little boy. For him to open his little eyes and smile that endearing smile.

  For Matthew to come back to her.

  Instead, his beautiful tiny face was lost to her as a suction catheter and oxygen mask took their place, as red dots were placed on his chest and leads attached to a cardiac monitor, as bags of fluid were attached to the drip Ross had inserted. Shelly sank back on her heels, utter, overwhelming despair filling her as Matthew just lay there.

  ‘Come on.’ Ross’s hand was pulling her up. Guiding her from the awful scene, leading her quickly into her bedroom.

  ‘I don’t want to leave him.’

  ‘You’re not leaving him,’ Ross said firmly, pulling open her wardrobe. As if she were a child, he dressed her, guiding her shaking legs into shorts, pulling a T-shirt over her head, even putting her feet into her sandals, tutting gently when he saw the blood on her foot where she had stubbed her toe. ‘Where are your keys?’

  His question was so, so irrelevant the usually meticulous Shelly had to think, forcibly rake her mind to think where the hell they might be. ‘In my bag.’

  ‘This one?’ Ross held it up and as Shelly nodded vaguely, the gut-wrenching nausea that had been ever present since Matthew had started fitting overwhelming her now.

  ‘Ross, I’m going to be sick.’

  He didn’t even bat an eyelid, just guided her to the en suite, running a towel under the tap to wash her face down afterwards, which he passed to her as easily as if he were passing her a tissue. ‘Come on.’

  The night air was warm as she stepped outside. They were loading Matthew into the ambulance now and Shelly vaguely registered the concerned neighbours standing and watching on the nature strips, dressed in shorts and nighties, brought out by the flashing blue lights of the ambulance and police car that was parked beside it. But she had eyes only for the stretcher and the tiny, precious bundle it carried.

  ‘Just wait here, love.’ A policewoman held her arm and gestured for Ross to go inside the ambulance. ‘I’m his mother,’ Shelly argued, but it was pointless.

  ‘Why are the police here?’ she asked, bemused. ‘We’re going to provide an escort.’

  The policewoman’s hand was on her shoulder, a quiet gesture of comfort and support, but Shelly was way beyond comforting. Every crackle on the radio, every garbled message making her jump with alarm as she waited, waited to be allowed in to her son.

  ‘What’s taking so long?’ Shrugging off the hand, Shelly lurched forward as Ross stepped down from the ambulance, his face grim, the blue light flashing, his skin unusually pale, and he took her hand as he spoke.

  ‘He had another fit,’ Ross started gently, ‘just as they got him inside. We stopped the fitting but…’ He was swallowing, trying so hard to look at her, trying so hard to be the strong one. ‘He stopped breathing for a moment.’ His hands tightened around hers as she gave a strangled sob. ‘We’ve intubated him, he’s heavily sedated.’

  If he hadn’t been holding her she was sure she would have sunk to the ground, but there was no time for dramatics. She needed so badly to see Matthew, however bad he was, and Ross seemed to understand that, gently helping her up into the ambulance, the paramedics nodding briefly as they moved some equipment to give Shelly some room to sit down.

  ‘We’ve got a police escort,’ the paramedic said kindly. ‘We’re going to have him at the hospital in no time. You just sit there and we’ll work on.’

  His instruction, however gently said, was clear.

  There was nothing now Shelly could do.

  The ambulance screeched off, hurtling through the darkened streets, its lights flashing, siren occasionally wailing as they braked near traffic lights then accelerated when the road was clear, playing a strange game of chase and catch with the sleek lines of the police car. And Shelly sat there, her teeth chattering, her body sliding along the seat with the motion of the ambulance, her white-knuckled hands holding the seat beneath, her red eyes staring, pleading at the inert body of her son as Ross and the paramedic worked on, squeezing the oxygen into his little lungs, the steady drip of the infusion, the loud rapid blips emanating from the cardiac monitor, so, so fast for a little boy so very still.

  The familiar sight of her hospital only terrified Shelly more. Here the awful dream became a reality as she watched well-known colleagues huddling into their theatre greens suddenly move as the ambulance approached, wrenching open the rear doors before the vehicle had even come to a halt, racing to get Matthew inside, to the life-saving equipment and trained expertise he so desperately needed.

  Someone, Shelly didn’t even notice who, led her inside, showed her into a small neat room where she was left, trembling, hugging her arms around her, waiting for some news, waiting for someone—anyone—to come and tell her just what the hell was going on.

  ‘Hello, Shelly.’ A vaguely familiar face appeared at the door and Shelly frowned as she tried to place it. ‘I’m Dianne, the receptionist. I just need to get a few details from you.’

  ‘Have you heard anything?’

  Dianne shook her head. ‘One of the nurses or doctors will be in to see you just as soon as they can.’

  Shelly stumbled through the form, giving Matthew’s name, his age, his date of birth, his address.

  ‘Does his father live at the same address?’ Dia
nne asked in the same tactful voice Shelly herself had used so many times before.

  ‘No.’ Shelly hesitated. ‘We’re divorced.’ She waited for a ream of other questions but they didn’t come for now. Dianne clicked off her pen and slipped it back into her pocket.

  ‘I’m a nurse,’ Shelly said in last futile attempt to gain access. ‘I’m a paediatric trained nurse, I work here! I should be with my son.’

  ‘You’re a mum tonight,’ Dianne said gently, the compassion in her voice steadying Shelly for a moment. ‘Let them do their work.’ Gently she guided her to a chair and handed her a box of tissues. ‘Is there anyone you want to call, anyone I can ring for you?’

  Shelly shook her head. ‘I’d rather wait till I hear some news.’

  ‘Hopefully it won’t be too long.’ Dianne gave her arm a small pat. ‘I’ll put my head in as I go past, remind them you’re in here.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Till then Dianne had always just been a receptionist, a woman Shelly nodded to sometimes in the car park or someone she grumbled to occasionally when the labels from Emergency were missing from the files, but tonight Shelly realised there was so much more to her job, that the administrative personnel who worked in a hospital were just as valuable as the nurses and doctors, and the patients that came through the door affected them just as much as the frontline staff.

  ‘How is he?’ Shelly jumped up the second Ross finally entered, but he gently pushed her back down into the chair.

  ‘The same, Shelly, they’re still working on him.’

  ‘Is he fitting?’

  Mercifully Ross shook his head, but the elation was soon doused. ‘He’s very sick, Shelly. Dr Khan’s in with him, and he thinks that it is meningitis.’

  ‘But I had him vaccinated.’

  ‘Shelly, you know as well as I do that the vaccination only protects against one strain of the disease. Dr Khan seems to think it’s bacterial, but we won’t know anything for sure until the test results start coming in.’

  ‘Can I go in yet?’

  Ross shook his head. ‘It’s better you stay here, Shelly.’

  ‘What about you? Why aren’t you in there with him, doing something?’ Her voice was starting to rise again, angry, scared eyes turning on him.