September 22nd – Chaos part 3

Annika arrived with Timothy, Mårten, Sofia and Emil. She has been a real sweetheart taking care of Timothy we are very grateful, thank you! The kids first played down in the playing area. We took some pictures of them and we chatted a bit. I had a period of calmness when they were around. We went upstairs to see James. T, M, E, S walked in one by one washing and disinfected their hands before going up to James. They held his hand and we took a picture each of them with him. It was surreal to see healthy lively children, gave us even more of a feeling living in our own world. But naturally we missed all our precious very dearly.
I was desperate. I was 99% sure James would die. I was already grieving his death. I wanted the other three boys to come and see him before he died before it was too late, especially to take pictures with James. What happened if James died, and three of the children didn´t have any pictures with him? It would be cruel. I called my father and he promised to come over with N, C and ET Monday afternoon. I relaxed a bit.Doctor Per Westin came in and said he had to get a needle into a vain on James so they could measure the CO2 in the blood which was very important to do. He had tried the day before with no success. James body was very sensitive and stressed - he had a lot of adrenaline in his system to keep him going. His body was on guard to protect itself from outer “threats”. Every time Per tried to put in the needle the vain closed so he couldn’t get the needle in place. They gave James local sedative of course. The first tried the arms and legs, Per tried several times in every limb. When it didn´t work he tried his groins. James was much stressed, he cried, had spasms and got so stressed he forgot breathing. I started to panic inside, I didn´t want to leave my baby, it felt like I would let him down. The nurse gave glucoses orally as extra comforting painkiller. Per kept on trying and James started to look like a colander. I got more and more protective and just wanted to move in between the doctor and my baby and protect him. I knew it had to be done to help James but still I just felt like giving the doctor a sweet knee. Finally he stopped. He said he would give James a break he was too stressed and he would talk to his colleges. We went up to James and talked to him for a bit. Per came back and said they would keep on trying for a while because it HAD to be done “there can be no compromise”. Nigel and I decided to go to have tea. We went out from the ward and I couldn´t hold my tears back any more. We stood in the hall for a while holding each other until I had calmed down. Another wiping of tears and headed for tea. Oh, I didn’t want to sit there among all the babies, some held by their parents, some kicking around in their mini cots or in the arms of their parents. I didn´t want people looking at me, it was obvious I had been crying my eyes out. I was sitting there in a breastfeeding top without a baby with puffy eyes. It was clear for the other newly parents, that our baby wasn´t well. If I looked up I had a sympathy look or I could see they were discussing us. My mobile went off. I answered and it was Per Westin. He said the needle was in, he and his college had been shifting turns. But he had made it. I got so silly happy and called the chief paediatric “good boy”, well that made him laugh. We knew he wanted to succeed and didn´t believe in failure so we were both pleased he made it instead of another doctor.