In the ward of the children's hospital where Rebecca spent many weeks, she had a metal crib, the kind you might imagine in some sad place, like an orphanage in a far-away country. It was quite tall, and had metal bars on all sides. The two side panels could be raised and lowered, but this wasn't an easy job, not only because of all the wires and tubes connected to Rebecca, but because the frames were stiff, and had to be unhooked on both sides simultaneously, a maneuver made all the more difficult because of their considerable size and weight. Eventually they'd come down with a horrendous screeching noise, the kind any child, healthy or sick, in any country, would be disturbed by.
a similar crib at a different hospital, a few hours before going home
The crib had some advantages. It was large enough for me to be able to climb into and, twisted up in an odd yoga-like position, cradle my trembling child while she tried to go to sleep. You never sleep much in hospitals: illness, alarm buzzers, medications, worries, corridor noises, medical staff coming in and out ... And I got very tired. I was on duty day and night, watching my child and trying keep her comfortable, watching the monitors, calling the nurses, administering medications.
Parents of under age hospital patients are normally allowed to be present day and night in every ward except in Intensive Care. In our ward, this seemed to have led to a transfer of duties from nurses to parents: parents were expected to administer all non-intravenous medications, change dressings, monitor and adjust some of the medical equipment, and so on. Parents are very quick to learn all there is to know about their child's sickness, symptoms and care. In some ways, they become better than trained nurses. But they are not nurses. And they don't work shifts.
same
One night, just after we'd been transferred to the ward from Urgent Care, a nurse entered the room and simply dropped a series of medications on the table by the bed. I lost my cool and called her back, to ask her to at least to give me the tools to administer the drugs, if not to help me: water and cups to dissolve the drugs, syringes to squirt them into her mouth, spoons to feed her the syrups, and so forth. We argued, and Rebecca, who was standing in the crib, started crying. I tried to unhook the side rail to pick her up, but in my weariness and rage I couldn't work the mechanism. I turned around to face the nurse.
Suddenly that horrendous screeching noise filled the room. I saw the nurse cover her mouth in horror. And when I spun around, Rebecca was lying face down on the floor. The side rail had come down, and my child, with all her tubes and wires, had fallen a meter onto the floor. She didn't have so much as a scratch, but I cried all night.
Recently I saw those medical records again. As I was turning through the thick stack of documents, they flipped open to a page, where I read: "22hrs - patient falls from her bed, called doctor for head trauma". But another phrase had been inserted: "22hrs - patient falls from her bed in the presence of the mother, called doctor for head trauma".
In the presence of the mother who, day and night for weeks at a time, couldn't easily go to get a bite to eat or shower, and could only use the restroom in a rush, after first putting socks over her child's hands so that she wouldn't pull her tubes out. In the presence of the mother who for weeks had administered medications every four hours, round the clock. In the presence of the mother who one night, when her child's condition deteriorated, had to ring for the nurse and insist that she page the emergency doctor. In the presence of the mother who could change her sick child's bedding with one hand, while holding with her child’s tubes and wires in the other, when her child picked up a gastrointestinal virus at the hospital.
In the presence of that mother, a sick child fell from a metal hospital crib.
