Thomas had been taken off the ventilator about 36 hours before now and we had spent agonising hours waiting for him to die. It soon became apparent that he had other ideas and had more life to live.
We spent the weekend living in limbo at the hospital waiting for our transfer to Helen House hospice the following Monday. My parents, Steve and Jane, and younger brother, Nicholas, brought Lucy and Oliver to visit us on Sunday. The intensive care unit organised for us to borrow a pram from the hospital's maternity unit so that we could walk to the local park. It was an amazing moment. For the first time since falling ill, Thomas and I left the hospital.
The sun shone down to provide a perfect early spring day. It was unusually warm and the sounds of children playing at the park, bicycles whizzing past and balls being bounced filled the air. Clumps of daffodils lined the pavements on the walk to and from the park and the bright yellow heads gently bounced in the breeze at the park. So much had happened and changed since we had first been admitted to hospital just eight days earlier, and the change of seasons certainly reflected that.
Our freedom was tightly timed between feeds and medication so we couldn't stay long but all of a sudden we had become a normal family once again. We were surrounded by the general public. We were able to go unnoticed without special treatment or care. For that short time we could almost forget reality. We were living as we had always imagined we would and, until that moment, feared we would never have the chance.
Comments