I’m not really worried about Ivy’s operation.
Ok, yes I am, in a kind of normal, ‘my kid is having an operation’ way.
What I am really scared about is the afterwards.
Immy was grey.
I walked into the kitchen about a week after she finished her course of post op antibiotics and she was sitting at the table, eyes flat and unmoving
and her skin was grey.
He mouth was slightly open, her cheek resting on the table top.
I touched her forehead, which told me that this kid was hot but there was no flush in her cheeks, instead she was a mottled grey the colour of dusk, almost.
In nursing we were taught the worst colour to be was grey.
Being pale was not good but being grey was bad, an indication that something sinister was going on.
I called for David.
I picked her up.
Her body lulled against mine like an old rag doll.
“She needs help”, I said and he asked why and I said, “look at her, she’s grey”.
So I took her to the hospital and she was sick.
Septic from her abscessed tonsil that had burst (quinsy). The infection now in her system. An infection that might have stayed in her adenoids, had she not had them removed three weeks previously.
Three weeks she lay in the hospital bed. Not much older than Ivy is but a bit.
Three weeks of not knowing, of watching and worrying, of waiting for her to fight back.
She did.
She was strong.
When William was born, he was grey.
In midwifery we were taught that blue was ok, purple was ok but grey was bad, very bad.
In the NICU he was pink until he had his first big crash and then he was grey.
In midwifery we are taught that if the baby looks mottled and grey that it can be a sign of infection or a sign of cardiac problems.
William was grey.
On the day he died he was ashen.
Ok, so I am worried, in a weird blogging at all hours of the night and into the morning because I can’t sleep kind of way but not for the reasons the doctors and nurses all think.
I don’t want to do grey again.
