Christmas at Jimmie's Children's Unit: Bachelor of the Baby Ward / Fairytale on the Children's Ward. Meredith Webber
colour rose in Mrs Stamford’s cheeks.
‘You mean, an abortion? No, I’d never have done that. A life’s a life—my husband and I both agree on that.’
But now the baby’s here you’d let him die? Kate thought, but she couldn’t say it. Nor could she understand Mrs Stamford’s thinking now, until the woman sighed and said, ‘You’re right. Of course I can’t let him die. It was the shock! Give me whatever I have to sign, then go ahead and operate.’
Kate had won, so why did she feel as if she’d lost?
Because things were never that easy!
‘He could still die,’ she said, even more gently than she’d spoken earlier. ‘These operations are performed quite often and with great success, but with any operation at any age there’s a risk. You understand that.’
‘Scared you’ll be sued if you don’t dot all the i’s and cross all the t‘s?’ Mrs Stamford snapped, but Kate heard the pain in her voice and knew the woman was close to breaking.
‘I’m more afraid that having given permission if something does happen you’ll blame yourself,’ she said. ‘You’re already doing that, aren’t you? Somehow you’ve convinced yourself this is all your fault, but congenital abnormalities can happen anywhere, any time.’
She stood up and moved closer to Mrs Stamford, putting her arms around her and holding her as the woman wept and wept.
‘This is the damn problem with only having units like this in the capital cities,’ Kate ranted to Angus a little later, the signed permission form in her hand. ‘The patient, and usually the mother, are whisked away and end up miles from family support. She’s got no-one, that woman, until her husband gets here. I know we can’t have units like this in every hospital in Australia, but there should be a better way of doing things.’
Angus gave her shoulder a comforting pat, the physical effect of which jolted her out of her worry over Mrs Stamford’s isolation, especially as she’d written her colleague down as a man who remained detached—too detached, she’d thought, for comforting pats!
‘She’s got the baby,’ he reminded her, and Kate looked up at him.
‘You mean…?’
‘You’ve already achieved one miracle this morning,’ Angus told her, ‘so why not go for two. Go back in there and ask her if she’d like to go with him as he’s wheeled to Theatre. We can get a wheelchair and she could touch him, hold his hand. Although if she doesn’t want to bond with him in case he doesn’t live—’
‘She thinks she doesn’t want to bond with him.’ Kate interrupted his objection, excited now by the idea. ‘But maybe she’s changed her mind about that, as well.’
She’d sounded positive about it, but deep inside she had her doubts, even wondered if it was wise to push Mrs Stamford this little bit more. But Angus seemed to think it was a good idea and he was looking far happier now than he had been earlier, so the least Kate could do was try.
She returned to the room where Mrs Stamford was lying back against the pillows, her eyes closed and only a little more colour in her face than when Kate had first seen her.
‘We’ll be taking him to Theatre very soon, and I wondered if we arranged a wheelchair for you and a wardsman to push it, you’d like to come up to the PICU and go as far as the theatre with him.’
Mrs Stamford’s eyelids lifted and dark brown eyes stared fiercely at Kate.
‘What are you? Some kind of avenging angel, determined to push me further and further?’
‘I just wondered,’ Kate said lamely, ‘seeing as you’re here on your own until your husband arrives and he, the baby, is on his own, as well. Maybe you could support each other.’
Oh, boy! Wrong thing to say! Mrs Stamford was in tears again, flooding tears and great gulping sobs.
Kate held her again, and it was only because she was holding her, she heard the whispered instructions.
‘Get the bloody wheelchair, but I want a nurse not a wardsman wheeling me. Men don’t understand.’
Uh-oh! Was it Mr Stamford, not Mrs Stamford, who’d found it hard to accept a less-than-perfect child? Had she consulted him—phoned him—before she signed the permission-to-operate paper?
And while Kate could have argued that some men were far more understanding and supportive than some women, she held her tongue. She gave Mrs Stamford a final hug and darted off, not wanting to give the woman time to change her mind. She arranged the transportation, then raced back up to the floor above, knowing she had to be there to intubate Baby Stamford and prepare him for his lifesaving op.
‘So tiny, the veins.’
She didn’t have to glance up to know it was Angus hovering beside her in the treatment room as she put a peripheral line into the baby’s foot, already having secured one in his jugular and administered the first mild sedative.
‘So tiny we need to work out better ways of doing this—smaller, more flexible catheters. You’d think it would be easy but I’ve been working with technicians from one of the manufacturing companies for over a year now, and we’re no further advanced. Too fine and they block, or twist or kink—it’s so frustrating!’
Angus studied the back of her head—a coloured scarf now hiding the bright hair—as she concentrated fully on her task.
She’d been working with techies to improve catheters? Kate Armstrong was full of surprises, not least of which had been the way she’d talked Mrs Stamford out of her indignation and allowed the woman’s natural maternal instincts to come out.
The redhead’s body brushed against his as she straightened up and his body went into immediate response mode. Not good where Kate Armstrong was concerned. She wanted kids—well, grandkids, which meant, as she’d pointed out, having kids first.
She was not for him!
Even though the ‘grandmother’ thing intrigued him! Not to mention whatever lay behind it…
Was it because of the familiar noises in the operating theatre, the sizzle of the bovie as it cut and cauterised tiny vessels, the bleeps of the monitors as they kept Kate up-to-date on Baby Stamford’s condition, the subdued chatter of the staff, the music playing in the background, that Angus felt so at home? Although this was not only his first operation at Jimmie’s but the first time he’d worked with any of the team.
Oliver Rankin was assisting. He was quiet, neat and efficient, although Angus rather thought he was casting glances in Kate’s direction a little too often. Clare Jackson was operating the bypass machine, waiting for the order to use it to take over the work of Baby Stamford’s tiny heart. Clare Jackson might not want children, Angus thought, standing back so Oliver could lift the pericardium away from Baby Stamford’s heart.
The thought startled him, and he shut it down immediately, dismayed to find himself, for the first time in years, thinking of something other than the operation while in Theatre. He prided himself on his total concentration on the job, and although he often joined in the general chat and jokes, his mind never strayed far from the tiny patient on the table.
She was far better looking, beautiful, in fact—Clare Jackson—so why was he, too, glancing up at Kate from time to time.
Because she’s the anaesthetist, of course, and she’s the one who knows how the baby’s doing, down there, all but hidden with the cage to protect his head and wrappings covering all his little body except his chest.
‘Blood gases fine,’ the woman he was trying to block from his mind said. ‘Heartbeats 130 a minute.’
With the little heart fully exposed, Angus inserted cannulas into the aorta and an atrial vein;