Reflections
Child health
Volume 197 - Issue 11

Goodbye little one

Authors:  Alison M Snodgrass and Hong Liang Tey

Med J Aust 2012; 197 (11): 658. || doi: 10.5694/mja12.11355
Published online: 10 December 2012
You were only 2 months old. I met you in the children’s intensive care unit one night, almost 3 years ago. Intracranial haemorrhage, they said. What happened? We were trying to keep you alive. You were tiny in that large hospital cot, dwarfed by technology and oversized pyjamas, your bedtime lullaby the hissing of the ventilator and suction machines. We calculated fluid requirements, made your blood pressure and electrolytes look ...
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You were only 2 months old.

I met you in the children’s intensive care unit one night, almost 3 years ago. Intracranial haemorrhage, they said.

What happened?

We were trying to keep you alive. You were tiny in that large hospital cot, dwarfed by technology and oversized pyjamas, your bedtime lullaby the hissing of the ventilator and suction machines. We calculated fluid requirements, made your blood pressure and electrolytes look pretty. We could do nothing about the unnatural floppiness of your little limbs, nor could we coax you to show us better brainstem reflexes.

I met your parents. They were so young, so new to mother- and fatherhood, so unprepared for the death of their very first child. I never had a chance to meet your usual babysitter, although I had so many questions for her. Did you fall? Did you cry too much?

They decided, eventually, to let you go. One night, they came and dressed you in a frilly pink dress, a little hat and pink booties. They brought your teddy bear and laid it beside you. Your mummy and daddy sat next to you and whispered for a while. Perhaps you heard them. Perhaps you felt their tears, warm showers of rain on your cheeks.

I could not remove the endotracheal tube.

My consultant eventually did it. And your little chest was silent. Your little heart was still.

Something broke inside me.

I had no right to grieve. That right belonged to your family, the ones who gave you up that night. Mine was the duty of the calmly compassionate doctor. Still the tears came.

Focus. Rationalise. Detach. Bed number and cause of death, not small and innocent shaken baby going up to heaven. I watched your electrocardiogram slowly flatten out. When does the soul leave the body?

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, it’s all right.”

This night shift will end. There was no time to fall apart now. There were 7 hours left till dawn.

Authors

  • Alison M Snodgrass MB BS, MRCPCH(UK)1
  • Hong Liang Tey MB BS, MRCP(UK)2
  • 1. KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital, Singapore.
  • 2. National Skin Centre, Singapore.

Correspondence: teyhongliang111@yahoo.com

View this article on Wiley Online Library

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