A mother's experience of her child's time in intensive care: Part 2

KARIN STORM INTRODUCES THE SECOND PART OF THIS ACCOUNT In the first issue of CONNECT, Kate Macdonald began her story of the admission to hospital of her little daughter Mary. In the second part of this story, Kate Macdonald describes her Mary’s stay in a paediatric intensive care unit (PICU), while severely ill with pertussis. When the parents saw Mary half an hour after her arrival at the PICU, she was peacefully asleep in spite of being surrounded by technical equipment. Kate and her husband had no thought that Mary might die; they were still thinking that they would be home with her in a day or two. After a few hours sleep, Mary’s husband went home to check on the other children, and Kate went to Mary’s cubicle again. Here, she spoke to a doctor who told her that Mary’s heart rate had fallen during the night but had now stabilised. At the time, Kate did not realise the importance of this message; she did not realize how sick her child had been because Mary had now stabilised. She went to the visitors’ hostel to have a bath. However, she did ask the staff to take some photographs of Mary, and afterwards she thinks that in some way she realized the seriousness of Mary’s situation. While Kate was in the hostel, she heard the phone ringing, but did not manage to answer it because of the locked doors; afterwards, she went to the ward with the milk-expressing machines because milk expressing had become a painful need. Here, she was told that PICU had been ringing for her. She hurried to the PICU and saw a lot of staff working with Mary; she rang her husband, David, and asked him to come immediately. Mary’s condition was getting worse and the doctors and nurses did not leave her. Kate describes in detail how intensively Mary was treated – everything that could be done was done. In these terrible hours, the ward consultant and nurses were talking to Kate and David and supporting them. Kate and David tried to rest in shifts and Kate began to make more arrangements with the hostel, and they both phoned to family and friends and tried to talk positively, but every time they returned to the unit, Mary’s situation had become much worse. At last, Mary’s heart stopped. The doctor told Kate and David that there was no hope and it would be kinder to let her die. Kate’s description of how they were reacting and feeling in this situation – which is the worst situation parents can ever be involved in – is heartbreaking. I feel that intensive care nurses can learn from it and use it the next time they meet a family in a similar situation.