Heavenly Beverley : Kate's Coronavirus Chronicles

Another day in the Coronavirus saga. I rose with Destructodog just after eight, as she was threatening to chomp through more of our bedding. Last night, I had been planning to write this post, but the wall caught up with me at nine-thirty and slammed me into a bedward direction.

A few minutes ago, at ten, Michael elegantly made his way into the living room. Good friend and fellow artist Murray Cook rang just in time for Michael to abscond from tea and coffee making. Talk about the life of Riley.

Yet another load of washing is whispering in my ear from the laundry, but I shall studiously avoid listening to its pleas, so I can get this bit of writing under my belt.

April 14/15 now has the tradition for some fabulous celebrations of life and hope.

Back in 2014, April 14 was a particularly horrible day. Michael was very sick in St John of God hospital. He had been there since the previous Thursday when his pneumonia had completely flattened him. Four days, three changes of IV antibiotics, precisely two visits from the Grand Poobah specialist and his entourage and one frantic wife. Michael was hallucinating all that terrible afternoon, his fever galloping and his resolve wavering. He kept whispering that he wanted to go home so he could die in his own bed.

We were in this predicament as Michael's Joondalup specialist had taken leave just as Michael had crashed. We could have been readmitted to Joondalup Hospital under Scott Claxton's team but we didn't know at that crucial time. On the morning of the fourteenth, I had ascertained that Scott had returned from leave and immediately requested a hospital-to-hospital transfer. Nothing was happening fast enough - no specialist, scant nurse attention and my husband seemingly fading in front of my eyes.

Late that afternoon, I saw red. In fact, Michael's room, the ineffective and dismissive specialist and his team of wannabes were all bathed in my scarlet rage. Having been informed by a registrar whom I thoroughly disliked that the current antibiotic was damaging Michael's liver and restricting treatment for his fever, I just exploded when the horrid little doctor decided to leave Michael on that drug. And then he turned his back on me...

Expletives erupted out of my mouth and I ordered the entire troop out of Michael's room. Having packed during the day in anticipation of the transfer, I moved our battered Volvo into the waiting zone and began throwing items into the back. The hospital's concierge brought Michael down from that dreadful place in a wheelchair so I didn't have to enter the ward again.

All we had were his original x-rays. I drove like a maniac through peak hour traffic and pulled into the Emergency parking bay at Joondalup Hospital. Loading him into a wheelchair and steering him to Triage, I explained that I'd kidnapped my husband from another hospital. The Emergency Department was packed. Michael was admitted in the waiting room and given twelve puffs of Ventolin through a spacer. Ninety minutes later, he was on a stretcher in Emergency, back under the care of Scott. An hour after that, he was sound asleep in his new room in the ward.

I remember waking on the morning on the fifteenth in a warm cloud of relief. Scott was in early, examining Michael and warning us this was a long haul. After the debacle at SJOG hospital, I nearly fell over as Scott included us as part of the team in the plan for Michael's recovery.

That day was a giant turning point. Even though Michael faced a number of complications over the next few weeks, I never felt unsafe or uninformed. We went home with Michael still receiving IV antibiotics. Then a long course of oral antibiotics. Finally, in June, we received the go-ahead from Scott that we could travel to Michael's beloved Goldfields.

Six years ago, I am convinced Michael nearly died. My lengthy and clear list of complaints about the conduct of the hospital, the staff and the doctor went precisely nowhere after another eighteen months. The official verdict is that because Michael had not actually died, the initial specialist had no case to answer...

A long time ago in a galaxy far far away, my oldest surviving son, Callum Timothy, was born after a horrendously stressful pregnancy, at six thirty-three on the evening of the 14 April 1989. At that time, Vanessa was three years of age and I had buried three babies in two years. Having been forbidden by my obstetrician, that outstanding and compassionate Terry Jenkins, to have another pregnancy for six months after my girls had died, I did just that. Zoe and Melanie were stillborn in January 1988; I was pregnant by the following August.

Callum, a steely perfectionist even in utero, refused to follow the song and dance routine we had set for him. Hence, he didn't stretch or roll or kick on command. The final six weeks were spent in repeated and frequent trips to hospital for monitoring his wellbeing. Five days before Callum's somewhat unplanned arrival, Terry has gone on leave promising to see me on the delivery table on 28 April.

Except, we didn't quite get there. After a week of heightened worry about the baby's movements, we made the decision that Terry's partner would deliver the baby on that Friday evening. And so, Callum was born, roaring with displeasure at being removed from his comfy cocoon and promptly had a fit of the vapours.

Quickly after a cuddle, Callum was moved to the Special Nursery. The official diagnosis was Hyaline Membrane Disease, which interferes with oxygen exchange in the lungs of premature babies. Neonatologist Noel French worked to stabilise Callum in an oxygen headbox for the entire night, so he wouldn't have to be transferred to the intensive care unit in another hospital. I know this as Noel was there at three o'clock in the morning when I first visited my new baby and then came to see me in my room at around eight o'clock on 15 April. Callum was improving. No transfer was necessary.

This was just the beginning of Callum's bloody-mindedness. He refused to feed, crawl or walk until he was damned well ready. He only slept when I played ABC Classics radio. He spoke in full sentences after being considered a late talker. He resisted all attempts at toilet training until he was three and a half. And that has been his pattern for most of his life.

However, when I think back to 15 April 1989, I am wrapped in a fuzzy glow of having brought Callum successfully into the world. And endless gratitude to Noel French. He was such a caring and compassionate doctor and really went the second mile. I encountered him again during my pregnancy with Alex. I had been chucked into hospital at thirty-two weeks gestation as I'd had a twinge that might have been a labour pain. The registrar I had been admitted under had refused my request to give me cortisone injections to strengthen the baby's lungs. I sought out Noel, who immediately prescribed the course of drugs for the following five days.

I remember asking him why the obstetric registrar had dismissed my concerns. Noel replied succinctly, "Some people are just born pompous pricks".

Thus endeth today's lesson. And like Michael's recovery and Callum's birth, the COVID 19 crisis will pass.