Unfiltered Story #18638

(I am a mum to a little girl aged three and a newborn daughter who had been in the NICU for two weeks after birth. My three year old develops tonsillitis just days after we come home and is very ill but then a week later also develops chickenpox from several children at nursery. My husband is deployed in the army during the whole past six months, meaning he’d missed our daughters’ birth and I was struggling on my own. This is the final straw and after taking both my girls to the hospital I am told to sit in the paediatric waiting room even though my daughter is screaming in pain and is clearly very unwell. I ring my husband in tears, he tells me to calm down and demand to at least see a nurse as she is only three years old and I have a newborn as well. At that moment my baby’s NICU nurse enters for her shift and sees me.)

Nurse: “[My Name]! Are you alright? What’s wrong?”

(Sobbing, I explain that my toddler had been diagnosed with tonsillitis the week before and now had symptoms of chickenpox as well. All the while I am holding my newborn as far away from my toddler as I can.)

Nurse: “Give [Newborn] to me. I’ll take her to NICU, she’ll need to be looked after by someone anyway because you have [Toddler] as well and there’s a chance she could be infected as she is still very small. Can you just come with us up to the desk to give consent of care and then you’ll be sorted.”

(I trust this nurse and so I give my baby to her. Five minutes later our name is called and it is confirmed that my toddler has both illnesses and will need to be taken into paediatric care to be treated as soon as possible as her veins have collapsed. I spend a few hours with her until she is asleep and then go to see my newborn in NICU.)

Nurse: “We ran some tests on her, [My Name], and she should be fine, but we want to keep her under observation for a couple of weeks to confirm she doesn’t have them too. How’s [Toddler]?”

(Two days later my husband returns home for a month on compassionate leave. Our toddler recovers quickly and our baby doesn’t get ill. I want to thank that nurse who saved my sanity and made sure we were well looked after for the two weeks we spent running between our children! She is now a good family friend and I am forever grateful that she arrived at that moment.)