Wedding on the Baby Ward by Lucy Clark

Author:Lucy Clark
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781460377369
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2015-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘OXYGEN at forty per cent.’

‘No more apnoeas,’ Janessa told Philip. ‘Caffeine, Kaycee. Wake him up.’

‘I’m on it.’ Kaycee was already injecting the caffeine into Philip’s drip in order to stimulate a response.

‘His hypothalamus is too immature. It’s not receiving the signals, not computing,’ Ray murmured as he brought the intubation trolley over.

‘Oxygen desaturating.’

‘Increase oxygen to sixty per cent.’

‘Are the umbilical lines clear? Still working?’

‘Yes.’

‘Prepare dexamethazone.’

‘No response to caffeine stimulus.’

‘Oxygen still desaturating.’

‘Boost to one hundred per cent. Prepare adrenaline.’

‘Chest X-rays?’

‘Get the machine ready.’

‘He’s still not responding.’

‘Bag him.’

They all worked together, each of them doing their utmost in order to save Philip’s life. It wasn’t looking good and they all fought harder.

‘Body’s changing colour. Going grey.’

‘No. No. Let’s get him ready to intubate.’ Miles was still pushing. Janessa was working equally hard.

‘Administer adrenaline. Come on, Philip. Hang in there.’

Janessa took over the bagging to give Kaycee a break, putting her finger over the hole of the Neopuff mask and lifting it again, getting the oxygen into Philip’s brain. Her fears that it was already too late, that even if they were able to save him right now, it might be too late to stop severe trauma to the oxygen-starved brain. In the distance, as though it was far, far away, she could hear the noise of a young girl crying. Violet. Violet was there. She’d picked a terrible time to come and see her son…then again, maybe it was the right time after all.

‘Colour still grey,’ Ray murmured, and Janessa could hear the dismay in her colleague’s voice.

‘Ready to intubate,’ Janessa said, and received a quick glance from Miles. He shook his head, the movement almost imperceptible, but she caught it. ‘We have to try,’ she urged him.

‘Lips are turning blue,’ Kaycee reported, her tone as despondent as Ray’s.

‘It’s over, Janessa.’ Miles’s tone held complete sadness.

‘No. We can do this. We can save him. We have the skill.’ She reached for the laryngoscope but Miles put his hand over hers.

‘It’s over.’ He took the instrument from her and met her gaze.

‘No.’ The word was torn from her, filled with anguish and sorrow. ‘No. We have to—’

‘Nessa.’ The use of her nickname, hearing it come from Miles’s lips, his deep voice laced with resignation, managed to break through her denial. ‘It’s over. Let him rest in peace.’

Janessa looked over at Philip, his lifeless little body just lying there, and her mouth went instantly dry. Flashes of Connor lying in almost exactly the same position… She blinked and swallowed. ‘Call it,’ she rasped.

‘Time of death, ten past two.’ Miles’s voice was hollow as though it was an effort to force the words out.

‘He was too premmie. Poor little love didn’t have the strength to fight,’ Kaycee murmured as she and Janessa stood looking down at the tiny, lifeless body. It wasn’t easy. It was never easy to lose a patient but when they were so new to the world, so young and helpless, relying on the doctors to do their very best to

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