Anything you can do...

Pink Pant Friday…

I couldn’t think of a better subtitle. There are only a select few people who will know what this means, but I feel pink pant Friday should be shared!

As I have mentioned before, after a couple of weeks in neonatal Arlo got a little friend who was there to stay. Others had come and gone after their brief stay in neonatal had moved to the high dependency unit and hopefully to low dependency and home. I didn’t feel I had much in common with these parents; the only communication was a cursory smile. They were holding their babies on a daily basis, waiting and willing them to get stronger. I feel like a hypocrite assuming that all was well and had always been well with them, but as an outsider observing this when your child lay next to them helplessly sick; it seemed that way. Even if they hadn’t had a smooth ride, I was observing the here and now and they were heading towards home. All I saw was them holding their baby and making plans, plans we couldn’t even dream of. Arlo was still far too sick and we still didn’t have a diagnosis, never-mind a cure (if indeed there was one). And as ashamed as I am to admit it, I was jealous.  We didn’t know what was wrong with him; we didn’t know why his white blood cells weren’t present; we didn’t know why his bone marrow declined to function; we didn’t know if we would ever hold our baby like they were holding theirs; we didn’t know if we would ever be making those plans. So needless to say, I wasn’t in the mood for small-talk while I was in next to Arlo. A tight smile it was. That was for outside and for the expressing room. Of course, I was happy for these families, but it didn’t mean it stung any less.

Arlo’s new little friend was called Lily. The few days before Lily arrived there were whispers and lots of conversations about a baby possibly being transferred from another hospital. I gathered from the conversation happening in nursery 7 that would be where the new baby would be staying.

As I opened the door one day I saw we had a new arrival in the opposite corner of the room to Arlo. I saw a lady, who I assumed to be Lily’s mum, sitting next to her incubator. She had her back to me, unable to keep her eyes off the precious bundle. Throughout doing my usual morning ritual, her eyes didn’t meet mine. And I understood.  I understood this completely. She was focused on the amazing little fighter in front of her as I was with Arlo.

Days rolled on and we became aware of each other camping out next to the two goldfish bowls containing the most precious cargo; sitting on a diagonal to each other in nursery 7, the smallest of the intensive care rooms. Lily’s mum, seems to have an air of sadness around her as she stared into the incubator. It was more than the worry and the stress of having a very sick baby. She was by her daughter’s side constantly, so when she disappeared for a couple of days I was worried. However, I didn’t feel it was my business to ask or if anyone would even be able to tell me, but I was worried. Observing the nurses in the absence of Lily’s mum was lovely, they treated her as they would have treated their own baby and I found it reassuring to see that’s how Arlo was treated when I wasn’t there. They talked to her, laughed, joked and smiled, even jokingly telling her off when she decided to cause chaos. Just like a mother would, just like we would. I did wonder where she was and I thought of how difficult she must have found it to be away from Lily.

Now, Lily had a few days to settle in and Arlo had the chance to realise that he had a friend who also had lots of alarms and noisy things to play with… All of which made different sounds some chimed, some beeped; the ventilator had its own special fanfare. As Lily’s mum returned Arlo and Lily began to communicate. I’ve mentioned before how Arlo would drop his saturations and protest by sounding the alarms to make his feelings known. It became apparent these two tiny babies from inside their fish bowls were capable of having a conversation across the room. Conversations and competitions.

Arlo would set off his saturations alarm, which would was a monotone chime, DONG DONG DONG DONG, Lily would reply with hers, DONG DONG DONG DONG.

Lily’s vent alarm would sound, this was a kind of fan-fare (I can still hear it now) DOO-DOO-DOO-N-DOO-DOO, Arlo chipped in with his, DOO-DOO-DOO-N-DOO-DOO.

Lily’s mum, who I learnt was called Lorraine, and I, along with the nurses in the room would laugh when the pair of them started their conversations. The noises in the room, the constant chimes and fan-fares broke the ice between Lorraine and I. With it not being the type of environment where you bustle in with a smile on your face, chirpy and smiling and introduce yourself to the room, nor sit around sipping a vodka faking some confidence to make new friends, not even like an awkward course where you sit around being forced to socialise with strangers who’s name you only know because of the generic white sticky label and name scrawled in felt tip. We didn’t have alcohol to make us brave or one of those awkward ice-breakers on team building courses. It’s not like any situation either of us had ever been in before and we didn’t really know what to do. But over the next few weeks we began to build a friendship, and it was all because of these two tiny human beings, the reasons we were there.

On a daily basis, these little conversations continued and they built. They turned into competitions. You see, when these alarms sounded they baby who sounded them got a lot of attention for a short while. The alarm would sound and there would be a burst of activity around one of them. Quickly they became wise to this, a dinging alarm meant attention, a sure-fire way to see how fast all the nurses could move.

It really was a case of, ‘anything you can do, I can do better…’

Arlo stopped weeing again for a couple of days, enough to give us a scare once again. This time he has a little blockage, the poor little man, but once that was cleared he flooded his incubator!

Lily stopped weeing, but she had to go bigger and better than Arlo. She stopped for longer and took longer to flow back, therefor making Lorraine terrified before starting up again at a snail’s pace.

Once, Arlo crashed and had to be ‘bagged’ where the nurses/doctors manually take over the breathing to get their oxygen levels back up. Arlo tried this out first, and upon seeing how much attention he received, Lily gave it a go. Making her oxygen levels plummet through the floor, she had all the nurses swarming round her bedside like bees to flowers, a Lily flower, just like they had round Arlo-flower previously!

Premature babies struggle to balance the vitamins and minerals in their little bodies. Arlo and Lily seemed to tag-team with these supplements. Lily had calcium; she no longer needed it so passed it to Arlo. Arlo required extra magnesium; he had his fill so passed it back to Lily. These two shared everything; thick as thieves.

Now… pink pant Friday. That was a different story altogether. It all started on a quiet Friday morning. Now, that word, ‘quiet,’ is never to be uttered in a hospital environment, because as soon as it is spoken, all hell is known to break lose! It’s a bit like saying “good luck,” to a cast member of a theatre show. I’m absolutely sure that morning that someone must have said, “Oh, it is quiet in here today…” which would have been met by the moans and groans of the other staff members. Then Dr Dewhurst entered the neonatal unit in a pair of pink pants, and that’s where it all went wrong!

As he entered the room that morning there were sniggers and laughter from the parents and nursing staff at the choice of pants. The doctor responded to this by explaining he was trialling this colour of pant today and it was nicknamed ‘Pink Pant Friday’ and it was commented that this was its trial run and if it was a success he would wear them more often. During the consultation that morning as I tried to concentrate on the conversation, I mentioned that Arlo’s ventilator was making a squeaking noise as he was breathing. It had made me jump to begin with, like Arlo was making a sound; his first sound, but I quickly realised it was his vent. The doctor told me that this can happen from time to time and that his oxygen levels were doing just fine so just to monitor it and if he needed a new tube he would get one. He checked on Arlo’s records and informed me that it was coming to the time where Arlo was due for a vent change so would have one soon, but it wasn’t an emergency as of yet. As for the rest of Arlo’ s problems they were greeted with the usual question mark they always were. Arlo was still the mystery man!

After Lorraine and I began to chat and I soon found out that she has returned to her hometown for her father’s funeral and the funeral of her son. Lily’s brother, George. I thought of my journey and how hard I was finding things and realised how incredible this lady was. She had experienced premature labour at home suddenly in the middle of the night and had given birth to Lily. While she anxiously awaited the ambulance, she was comforted by her little helper, her 5 year old son, Charlie. Lily was breathing on her own during this time, which was a miracle in itself. Even when they ambulance arrived, they didn’t have the equipment to intubate her, so she was just given an oxygen mask until they could reach the hospital. As lily fought on in the neonatal unit; Lorraine remained pregnant with George for 2 more days before giving birth to him too. He put up such a fight, for almost two weeks before peacefully passing away in her arms. George grew his wings the day Arlo was born. Lorraine told me that when she saw Arlo’s birth date, she found comfort in the thought that George was too sick to be here, so he had made way for Arlo. The sentiment brought tears to my eyes. Her boy knew he wasn’t going to survive, so he put his efforts into making sure Arlo gave it all he had.

Lorraine had been through so much and yet the uncertainty continued with having Lily so sick. I bet sometimes she wanted to run and bury her head in the sand and no one could have blamed her for needing some time away. The fear of your baby being so poorly, the thought they may not survive constantly hangs over your head, I can only imagine how much more real that fear is when you’ve experienced it just weeks before. But Lorraine didn’t run and I doubt the thought ever crossed her mind, aside from two days to attend two heart-breaking funerals, which must have torn her apart, she was there with her daughter, every step of the way and for that I truly admired her.

As well as having both our little fighters in neonatal, we both had 5 year olds at home that we were missing terribly. Charlie visited Lily when he could, just as Alfie visited Arlo. It was a fine line to balance keeping their normal routine at home and bonding time with their sibling, as well as seeing us. And it was so difficult being away from our boys, from being mothers to them. From being hands-on mothers, making the packed lunches, baths and bedtime cuddles. We knew how one another felt as we felt exactly the same way ourselves.

During that Friday, the neonatal unit seemed crazy. There was hustle and bustle everywhere. Just about every baby in the neonatal unit was having ‘one of those days.’ And room 7 was no different. I went to express a few doors down and upon my return Loraine told me that Lily had to have an emergency vent change. She must have overheard that Arlo was due one and decided he wanted to get in first! All was well now and calm was restored to nursery 7.

Briefly.

Everything seemed to happen when I was out of the room. This time I had nipped down to the café at the front to get some lunch. I couldn’t have been gone more than 30 minutes. Once again, upon my return the great number of nursing staff seemed to be stepping down from around Arlo’s bed and ebbing away from the room. His machines ticked over perfectly, numbers reading within range, Arlo snoozing peacefully, a quiet vent without a squeak I noted. While washing my hands I didn’t take my eyes from Arlo. The nursing staff came over to me and explained that Arlo had also had an emergency vent change, I immediately looked over at Lorraine. I had previously assessed him as I entered the room, so I knew all was well, so upon this information Lorraine and I looked at each other and laughed! The pair of them couldn’t let one have something without it happening to the other too. The coincidences were unbelievable!

Alarms seemed to be going off left, right and centre on Pink Pant Friday. I even heard the crash alarm go off, I saw nurses fly from our room, leaving skeleton staff in there to join the stampede of doctors and nurses thunder past our room to the baby in need.

Towards teatime, heading towards staff changeover, a dishevelled Dr Dewhurst (who we had not clapped eyes on since earlier that morning) and his pink pants entered the room to check up on Arlo and Lily. He entered the room with the announcement that the trial of Pink Pant Friday had been a disaster. Cue laughter from the parents and staff once again.

Even as a medical professional, you still have to employ a sense of humour. Dr Dewhurst and his team had been saving babies all day long. They were mentally and physically exhausted, but underneath their medical training they are people like you and I. And at the end of an exhausting day where everything has gone wrong and you feel like you’ve been running on a treadmill not making an inch of progress, you let yourself sink and pick apart every decision you have made, questioning your judgement and how you could have made things better (this will happen anyway). Or you can crack a joke and raise a smile and vow never to repeat Pink Pant Friday.