Saturday 16 February 2013

More blackouts

So after the first grandchild was born - very soon after - I received a telephone call. A familiar, East Scottish accent immediately told me who it was.

"Hi", she said, "How are you?"

I gave her the usual response, and - after an inappropriately long pause - she gave me hers.

Grand daughter M had - in the first few months of her little life - suddenly been taken ill with a virus, and had shown signs of fitting - I mean having a fit - as she lay in her cot, about 10 or 11 the evening before.

I will say now that they never found out what that virus actually was, or - indeed - if it was a virus at all, but the best medical minds in the East of Scotland (or at least whoever was on duty at Elgin at the time) had got together and decided - for the sake of giving an opinion - that a virus it must have been.

"So what happened?" I breathlessly asked, and my daughter told me the story.

M began fitting at about 10 pm the previous night, and rather than dial 999, her mother decided to call the local doctor, who was at a dinner party and drunk at the time. He reassured her that nothing was wrong, she was making a fuss, he would not come to visit until the following morning and she should stop trying to ruin his delightful dinner party. At no time did he suggest dialling 999 and getting emergency help.

So my daughter put the phone down, and looked over her daughter, and about a quarter of an hour later, M began to fit again, so - at fucking last - she dialled 99 and the paramedics arrived to take them all to intensive care.

Too fucking late. Too much oxygen had been denied her little brain, and the general opinion was that she would be brain-damaged for life.

"How brain-damaged?' I asked.

"We won't know for quite a few years", was the only response she could give for about 4 of those few years.

Shit, shit, shit, shit. shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit - was all I could think at the time.

Now, all these years later, the extent of the brain-damage is quite apparent, and it is severe enough to make me worry for M's future, when both me and her mother are gone, but even that is hard to tell.

Blacker than fucking black. Excuse my French.

16 comments:

  1. Sometimes it defers as though all we do is exist from one trauma to another........ With just a couple of happy times in between to lift the gloom

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    1. Most of the time, most of everything is - truthfully - perfectly happy, but then it all comes down like an avalanche, and a different truth gets put up as a blog post. I suppose that I want people to know that I lead no more charmed a life than anyone else, and everything else is no more lying than this. This story will continue.

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  2. That's truly a sh*t story Tom. I'm so sorry for your daughter and grand-daughter.

    None of us live charmed lives unfortunately. I've just spent two hours on the internet reassuring my own daughter whose life is almost the polar opposite of yours but filled with despair.

    I sometimes wish for a return to a faith I rejected a lifetime ago so as to provide some hope in an increasingly bleak world.

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    1. Everything will be ok eventually, one way or the other. While you were talking to your daughter for two hours, I was watching two hours of colour film of WW2. War is like fire - nobody wants it, everyone wants to put it out, and will do anything to put it out, including killing innocent children. I guess I am in a black mood today.

      Unconditional love is the substitute for faith, I think.

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  3. I, for reasons unknown, still have faith. And even though answers rarely come my way, I wouldn't recognize a burning bush if I sat on it, I still pray. Tonight blog friend I pray for you and yours

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    1. You would recognise it if your arse was on fire, I bet.

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  4. This is an extremely sad tale, and I quite expect one that is repeated regularly throughout the world. That unwillingness to give time, or correct advice, often has unimaginable consequences. My own daughter almost died as the result of bad diagnosis, even though we kept telling him what we feared. Luckily, in our case, all went well (just).

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  5. What an awful thing to have gone through and still be going through Tom .... for all involved. Life isn't smooth sailing for anyone but, when you are let down and the concequences are so dire, black must become even blacker. It must be quite diffcult if they still live in Scotland too. The problem won't be going away but, I hope that black cloud lifts soon. XXXX

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  6. Yes, that's black, though black folk may differ ...
    Children fitting during a fever is horrifying when it happens but the consequences can be so bad. Thanks for telling the story, Tom.

    My two year old had the same thing happen to her three days after a whooping cough immunisation. We were camping at the beach when she started fitting. There was a young woman on the beach that day who told me recently that she never recovered from seeing me running towards the water with my unconscious baby and dunk her in the waves to bring down her temperature.

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    1. That must have been terrible for you, but great response, never the less.

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  7. Dear Tom,
    so sad to read your lines, with compassion. No way to solace, just being there to listen.

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  8. Thank you all for those comments, but I think I have got a bit too personal here, so here is where the story ends for the time being. I would have deleted this post, were it not for your comments.

    The next post will be as boring/entertaining as I can make it.

    I have good news, I have just discovered the original building in which Mary Shelley finished writing Frankenstein, and it was not - as I thought - demolished. In fact, H.I.'s daughter works in it every day of the week, and I will go there this week to take a few pictures.

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    1. Cheers ... And I'm glad you didn't take the post down. Came here this morning half expecting it gone! There is a lot of power in sharing the personal. The web may seem like a big place but I've never felt that in this bloggy little community. X

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    2. Re 'black' - I don't think we should get too hung up on using the concept of 'black' as in 'black moods' for fear of offending anyone with brown skin. It would be a madder world if we lost the use of everyday words and sayings through political correctness.

      My young, brown-skinned taxidermist beauty came round here for dinner last night, and she peppers her language with every cliched reference that anyone else does. Not to do so would be even worse, and just plain silly, I think.

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  9. Catching up after a few years...this blog is a subject close to my heart...makes me want to warble my alltime favourite quote of this week “Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats” Voltaire

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