Page 50 of Prognosis Christmas Baby

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘One more sleep.’

Maggie rolled her eyes at Linda as she checked her six-o’clock antibiotics. She was glad that she wouldn’t have to hear the countdown again for another twelve months. ‘How old are you?’

‘Oh, come on, Scrooge,’ Linda teased. ‘You love it too.’

Yes. She usually did. But this was not going to be a normal hospital ball. She was pregnant. And the father of the baby was going to be at the same table.

In a tux.

‘They look good to me,’ Maggie said, deliberately changing the subject. She clicked on the medication chart and it opened on the monitor screen, allowing her to sign that she’d checked the drugs.

‘How’s Christopher going?’ she asked as she typed in her password. She was in charge of the afternoon shift and needed to keep up to date with the patients’ conditions.

‘We’re just waiting on his formal bloods. His kidney function is holding but his haemoglobin is falling. His last pulmonary haemorrhages didn’t help. We’re going to transfuse if it’s less than seventy.’

Maggie nodded and moved to the other side of the bed where Christopher’s mother sat, holding her heavily sedated son’s hand. The teenager was very pale. ‘How are you doing, Bree?’ she asked, placing a hand on the woman’s shoulder.

‘Okay, I guess,’ she said, looking up at Maggie. ‘I still can’t believe it, though. I know we’ve been here for quite a few days now but I just can’t wrap my head around it.’

Maggie nodded. Five days ago fourteen-year-old Christopher Thirkettle had coughed up large amounts of blood at school and collapsed. He’d been brought to the Brisbane Children’s Hospital via ambulance where his condition had deteriorated down in the accident department requiring him to be intubated and ventilated.

A battery of tests had revealed that the teenager had Goodpasture’s disease, a very rare autoimmune disorder that caused the body’s immune system to attack its own lung and kidney tissue. After months of vague flu-like symptoms, lethargy and a dry cough his deterioration had been rapid.

The kidney component of the disease hadn’t progressed at this stage and they were monitoring it very carefully, hoping to arrest its development altogether. Unfortunately, though, despite commencing steroids, his lungs were still in a bad way and he’d had several pulmonary haemorrhages in the last few days.

‘It’s perfectly normal to have feelings of disbelief when your child falls ill like this,’ Maggie assured Bree, giving her shoulder a squeeze. ‘Would you like to chat to our social worker to talk some of these feelings through? I can arrange it for you.’

‘That won’t be necessary, Sister.’

Maggie turned to find Christopher’s rather overbearing grandfather behind her. He was an odd man, often rude and abrupt, but he’d lived with Christopher and Bree since his grandson had been a baby and there was no denying how good he was with Christopher.

She took a deep, steadying breath as Bree said, ‘Dad, Maggie’s just trying to help.’

‘Well anyway,’ Maggie said, ‘just let me know if you ever require their services.’ She gave Bree’s shoulder another squeeze and moved back towards Linda, keeping one ear on the conversation between father and daughter.

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