Bramble Ward

It has taken me over a week to process the horrible happenings of last weekend when Smidge and I were subjected to three days of cubicle torture on the local children’s ward following a visit to A&E.

It wasn’t meant to happen this way you see. I’d only visited the out of hours G.P an hour or so beforehand and she’d packed us off home with antibiotics.

The trip to A&E was only ever intended to be an anxiety-related precautionary measure, the outcome of which would be a few raised eye brows and some sympathetic looks.

Needless to say when the Matron pulled the emergency oxygen supply of the wall and swiftly moved us on to the resuscitation bay, we were more than a little taken a back.

‘I don’t want you to be alarmed’ She says

‘But I’m going to put her with a one to one nurse whilst we are assessing her’

And with that we were guided to a room where monitors were plentiful and doctors announce themselves at the drop of a hat.

Second only to the time I was falsely accused of stealing hubba bubba from the local spa shop aged eight and half, The feeling was one of complete disbelief and despair.. What on earth is my baby doing on the resuscitation bay?

I can hear pipe and suction type noises coming from the bed beyond the curtain and the sound of an onlooker calling out that she’s scared and frightened.

Could you please not keep saying that , I’m thinking, biting down my already bitten down nails to the point of causing pain.

The doctor pulls out her stethoscope and starts asking about allergies and other non-urgent sounding questions.

What’s she faffing about asking questions like that for?

Shouldn’t she just get on and start resuscitating or something? I wonder staring at a slightly warm but totally breathing Smidge.

What if she misses something urgent whilst asking all this faf?

Could it be meningitis? I waffle, before launching myself in to Stephens’s shirt, unable to bare her response.

‘The Meningitis rash doesn’t normally look like this, see the way it disappears to the touch?..No, I think what we have here is a typical case of bronchiolitis'

‘See Mum?’ Says Mr. G, putting a reassuring hand on my shoulder ‘it’s all good’

‘ Okay, yes..um thank you and er.. Sorry for… you know for being worried’

‘That’s okay, I understand perfectly, It’s because of all you’ve been through’

Well actually it’s because we are in the resuscitation room.

At the hospital.

Giving my baby oxygen.

but yeah I know what you mean.

Without further ado we were then transferred to Bramble ward and placed in a pale green room with a prison cot in the middle.

Well that night Smidge started  firing disapproving looks at me from between the bars.

‘Get me out of this orphan cot’ she scowls ‘I’ve done my time in NICU’

‘It wont be for long Roo' I sympathise stroking her hair.

'Well at least do me a couple of rounds of mountain song’

So I do.

And a couple more rounds.

And a few more after that.

Before long Mountain song became an integral part of the Bramble- ward -cubicle- torture experience, along with the sats monitors and alcohol gel, taking me back to place I thought I'd long since left behind.