‘Eden Hadley, admitting nurse for Paeds,’ Eden said as she was connected, listening to an unfamiliar nursing sister and scribbling down an initial diagnosis as Nick looked on. ‘Chest infection or difficulty feeding.’ She shared a wry grin with Nick as Emergency attempted to shuffle their patient to the top of the list. ‘And he’s three years old. Have we had him before?’
An incredibly long wait ensued as the nurse attempted to locate the patient’s history, reeling off a long list of complaints until finally Eden halted her.
‘Ben!’
‘No,’ came a hesitant voice down the line. ‘The name I’ve got is Maxwell Benjamin Reece, he’s a three-year-old with Down’s syndrome. He’s also…’ The nurse lowered her voice and Eden rolled her eyes, finishing the sentence for her.
‘HIV positive. He’s familiar to the ward, but he goes by the name of Ben. Could you let the staff who are dealing with him know that, please? Who’s with him?’
The frantic scribbling on her notepad had stopped—Ben was familiar to anyone who worked on the paediatric unit and Eden didn’t need to write down his past history. She gave a frown as the emergency nurse cheerfully declared that he had come in accompanied by Lorna, a social worker. It became clear that, yet again, little Ben was a ward of the state, that he’d had a chest X-ray and that they wanted to send him up soon as they were getting pretty full. Maybe it would be better if he was in familiar surroundings.
‘Send him straight up,’ Eden said, replacing the phone in its cradle.
‘Ben?’ Nick checked.
‘Minus his new foster-parents.’ Eden ran a hand through her hair, pulling out her tie and collecting all the loose curls that had fallen out and replacing them, an automatic gesture she did ten, maybe twenty times a day,
‘What’s the diagnosis?’
‘They’re fumbling to get one.’ Eden gave a tight smile. ‘Why don’t they just admit that little Ben’s too much like hard work?’ Closing her eyes for a moment, she instantly regretted her words. It wasn’t for her to judge. Ben wasn’t just her favourite patient. Everyone, from cleaner to consultant, adored Ben, but, as cute as he was, he had been dealt more than his fair share in life. Genetic, social and hereditary problems seemed to have aligned when he had been conceived. ‘I’m just sick of seeing him passed around, Nick. It just doesn’t seem fair that one little boy should have to put up with so much.’
‘He’s happy,’ Nick said soothingly.
‘Is he?’ Eden wasn’t so sure. ‘He just doesn’t know any better, Nick. He’s never been given a chance.’
And though no one could have expected a drug-addicted teenage mum to deal with a Down’s syndrome baby, if Ben’s mum had only revealed her pregnancy earlier than in the labour ward, had received antenatal care and been diagnosed as HIV positive, then she could have taken some measures that could have lowered the chances of her transmitting the disease to her son. Sophisticated antiretroviral drugs could have been given during pregnancy and labour, even in the period following birth, but Ben had received none of these. Only when his mother’s results had come back ten days post-birth had her HIV status been revealed, and despite the best preventative treatment her HIV status had been passed on to her son. As the weeks had dragged by into months, as endless foster-parents had tried and failed, little Ben was constantly returned to the hospital. It would seem that hospital was the only home this little boy knew. But Nick seemed to understand how Eden was feeling.
‘Someone will come along soon for him.’
‘When?’ Eden asked, not even attempting to hide the bitterness in her voice. ‘He’s not going to live long, Nick—you and I both know that. I just really hoped…’ She didn’t finish, couldn’t, tears stinging her eyes.
‘Really hoped what?’
‘That he’d get one Christmas with a family, that this foster-placement would work out…’ Eden choked, ‘One Christmas of being of spoilt and cuddled, one Christmas being loved…’
‘Ben doesn’t go short of cuddles,’ Nick pointed out, ‘All the staff love Ben. He’ll get all that here.’
Eden shook her head. ‘Twenty-eight kids will get that here, Nick—the nurses will make sure of it—but most kids that are here over Christmas are here because they’re very sick. We’re stretched to the limit normally, but especially over Christmas. Most of the children will have parents and siblings, aunties and uncles to dote on them, and Santa will come and visit. We’ll do our very best for Ben, but no matter how hard we try it’s not the same as…’ she took a deep breath ‘…a family Christmas. As much as you mock it, Nick, as much as we all grimace sometimes at the thought of it, we wouldn’t have it any other way. And that little guy has never had it, not even once.’ Eden shook her head, more to clear it. She couldn’t allow herself to get so involved, it wasn’t healthy for anyone. ‘I’d better go and get a cot ready—he’s already on his way up.’
One look at those big brown eyes and Eden was instantly reminded why Ben was everyone’s favourite—it wasn’t just sympathy for his ailments that evoked such a response, it was all to do with a little guy who could melt the hardest heart at fifty paces. His dark hair was a wild mop around his little face, his almondshaped eyes were always expressive, and his cute mouth broke into a wide grin despite the bottle he was halfheartedly sucking on as Eden greeted him.
‘Hey Ben, we’ve missed you!’
‘Den!’ Ben answered, and Eden was thrilled that he remembered her name. He’d only just started to talk a few weeks ago when he’d last been admitted as a patient, and Den had been one of his early words, more being near the top of the list.
More milk.
More chocolate.
More cuddles.
But his first word had been the one that had torn at Eden. Whereas most children started their vocabulary with a gummy mum or dada, Ben’s first word had been no.
No to the endless drips and IVs, no to the mountain of medicine he had to take and, saddest of all, no, when his favourite nurses’ shifts ended and they popped in to say goodnight.
Lifting him up off the trolley, Eden expertly negotiated the oxygen tubing and carried him to his freshly made-up cot. She propped Ben up on a couple of pillows she had prepared so that he remained semiupright to allow for greater chest expansion and strapped an oxygen saturation probe to his fat foot. There was no murmur of protest. Ben was way too used to the procedure to fuss, as most toddlers would have.
‘I’m just going to speak to the nurse and then I’ll be back, Ben.’
The nurse giving handover didn’t have much more information to give than she’d had over the telephone. ‘He’s reluctant to take fluids and mildly dehydrated and his ears are clear. But he wasn’t about to let us look down his throat…’
‘Typical Ben.’ Eden smiled, knowing how much Ben hated having his throat examined. ‘Why hasn’t he got an IV?’
‘The doctor thought we should rehydrate him via a nasogastric tube first.’
‘But he hasn’t got one in,’ Eden pointed out.
‘We tried to put it down but he got very distressed. We’re trying him with his bottle.’ The nurse didn’t quite meet Eden’s eyes as she answered and even before her next question came, Eden already knew the answer.
‘Has he been given any antibiotics?’
‘Oral,’ the nurse said, pointing to the prescription chart. ‘He’s only got a mild infection—this