I still have moments of pure panic, I had one this morning in fact when I read a blog from the Island defending the closure of the Ocean Ward. Many people have argued the case but it was the first time I had read the defence saying 'if this ward is closed then many heart children from the island will die'.
When Georgia was diagnosed right up until her heart surgery we were waiting. Waiting for the surgery or waiting for her to die. I know it sounds dramatic but being in that position, it was just how we felt. Since her surgery I have felt slightly more secure but when I think about it too much she is still really ill and there is every chance she could die. I always get my head into the worst case scenario, it's kind of a self preservation thing, if the worst happens I am ready but if it's good news then I am overjoyed. Saying that, are you ever ready to lose a child? Anyway reading this article my stomach lurched, if they move this ward and something happened like before would we have time to get her miles away to a specialist hospital? Southampton is far enough and the journey there with a poorly child is petrifying.
So in the middle of May, almost a year to the day, Georgia started to have really bad breathing problems. Every time we gave her a feed her breathing got really laboured and her chest rattled, normally this would be solved by her vomiting but this was not working anymore.
On top of Georgia starting to get really ill we had really bad financial difficulties and were not able to keep up with our bills and mortgage, safe to say we were in hell.
The phone call for the surgery came 2 weeks after her bad breathing began, they had booked her in for the 13th June so we had to be there the day before to get her prepped. This was weird news, although we were pleased it terrified us both. We were also a bit annoyed as her surgery had been booked for the weekend of the Isle Of Wight Festival, not that we wanted to go, the ferry would be packed out, full of muddy hippies!
A week before she was booked in for surgery I had been up all night with her. Georgia's breathing was so bad that I could hear it through the baby monitor. I stayed in her room all night watching her little chest rise and fall, listening to her rattling breathing. Honestly i was waiting for it to stop, by this point I thought the poor girl was struggling so much that she deserved a break. Sitting in her room that night is one of the only times I regretted our decision to continue the pregnancy, I know we have no right to play god or not let her fight for life but I never realised how hard she would have to fight.
At 5am she started to cry, any mother knows the difference between the moany cry and the pain cry, this was a pain cry. I had never heard anything so awful, she was in pain but was too tired to put the effort in, at this point I called the hospital for advice. The nurse I spoke to said to take her up to the ward if I was worried, after I hung up the phone Georgia went back to sleep in my arms, I didn't want to wake her so I thought I would stay at home until she woke up and see how she was then. Ten minutes later she woke up crying again, this time I knew something was wrong and called 999. While I was on the phone to them with Georgia still in my arms she went limp, I looked down and she had gone blue and her eyes had rolled back into her head. I remember saying to the emergency services 'where is the bloody ambulance?' she replied by saying 'it's on it's way' and i shouted 'i find that hard to believe, we are a small island, i should hear sirens by now!' Poor woman, I feel bad now! On arrival, as ever, the paramedics were wonderful. I had placed Georgia on the floor and tilted her neck to open her airway, they swooped in and took her off to the ambulance for some oxygen, still unconscious. Stupid me just stood there. I didn't know what to do. One of the paramedics came back in he suggested I follow in my car. Dumbstruck I asked if I needed to take anything for Georgia, I didn't even know if she was still alive. She was, she had gone into respiratory arrest. Our local hospital put it down to her heart being to stressed.
The surgery couldn't come quick enough.
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