Put the week behind you with this ‘completely brilliant and lovely’ doctor’s story
This story is making people smile and cry, occasionally at the same time. After the week the world’s had, it might be just what you need right now.
1.
(I’m going to tell a wee Twitter story, forgive the flurry of Tweets for the next few minutes please)
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
2.
For many UK doctors, the first week of August is the anniversary our careers starting
For me, the second week in August is also important
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
3.
Second week in August marks an older anniversary for me: why I’m a doctor, why I’m a paediatrician, why I’m a comic geek
32 years this year
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
4.
36 years ago, when my sister was a baby, she got epiglottitis.
She was very sick (tubed!); treated at Raigmore @NHSHighland
She got better
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
5.
4 years later, summer of 1985, she got sick again.
Coryzal, fever, drooling, harsh breathing.
I was 9. She looked sick. Toxic.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
6.
Mum took her to our local GP. He examined her, told my mum it was a cold, take her home, give Calpol, she’d be fine
Mum argued. He insisted
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
7.
Mum put us in the car
She didn’t drive home
She put her foot down, drove the 40 miles straight to the nearest ED, in Raigmore @NHSHighland pic.twitter.com/aZU45Vx8s7
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
8.
I remember how she looked and sounded in the car: sick, harsh raspy breathing, her chest working ever harder. It was scary.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
9.
My sister had a respiratory arrest minutes after we arrived in the Raigmore Emergency Dept; her airway completely blocked by swollen tissues pic.twitter.com/DjFaa8SlE2
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
10.
I was, briefly, on the fringes as the ED materialised around her, doctors and nurses suddenly there to try to save her life
She vanished.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
11.
She was intubated in ED.
There was no paediatric ICU in Raigmore.
She went to adult intensive care.
My dad arrived.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
12.
I was a smart kid, with a vivid imagination. I knew she was sick.
“Is she going to die?”
Dad didn’t know. He didn’t lie. He didn’t know.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
13.
Dad drove me home, leaving my mum and my sister deep in the heart of the hospital.
I don’t think he really knew what to say to me.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
14.
I remember that drive home so so vividly.
We drove through a torrential rainstorm that lasted only a few minutes, then sunshine
A rainbow
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
15.
We stopped at a petrol station.
Dad, to try to distract me, bought me a comic … this one: Transformers UK issue 24 pic.twitter.com/qc9ssXtLNS
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
16.
It was the first Transformers story I’d ever read
Shockwave (bad guy) attacks an oil rig
A girl gets hurt, badly
It was “to be continued” pic.twitter.com/EwpTIoGTDP
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
17.
I needed the rest of the story.
“Is she going to die?”
Dad didn’t know that either
In my head the comic girl and my sister got merged
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
18.
My sister was very sick.
I got handed around friends and family as my parents sat by her ICU bed.
I imagined awful things.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
19.
My mum insisted I needed to see her.
“No children in ICU”
Mum argued: he’ll imagine much worse than it is! (I was!)
She won that one.
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
20.
I remember her in Intensive Care
Small, in an adult world
Vulnerable, fragile – but protected
People all around trying to make her better
— Mike (@thefourthcraw) August 9, 2017
