Questions of Trust A Medical Romance - By Sam Archer Page 0,15

to hospital.’

‘What?’ Chloe was disorientated. This couldn’t be happening. Half an hour earlier they’d been at home together in the peace of the spring afternoon. Now… her boy needed hospitalising?

Dr Carlyle was already reaching for his phone. ‘Jake has something called a quinsy. A peritonsillar abscess, to give it its full name. He needs an ear, nose and throat specialist to have a look at it, but it’ll almost certainly need draining.’

‘Surgery?’ She clutched Jake close.

‘Yes, but it’s straightforward. Very quick. It can be done with local anaesthetic, but as he’s just a little guy they’ll probably put him under for a few minutes.’

‘Will he… is it…’ The room seemed to Chloe to be spinning. Dr Carlyle had punched in numbers and was waiting. He raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s curable. He’ll be fine. Good thing you brought him in when you did, though. We’ve caught it just in time.’

‘Oh God. What would have happened if…’

The doctor gave a slight shake of his head. ‘Don’t think about that now. You did the right thing. The main thing now is to get him to the ENTs. Hello?’ he said into the phone, suddenly, as someone came on the line. ‘Chris, it’s Tom Carlyle here. Got a very brave little boy who needs your help.’

The next hours passed for Chloe in a fog of bewilderment, terror and, gradually, dawning relief. Dr Carlyle administered some more paracetamol to Jake while Chloe stripped him out of his clammy clothes. All at once the ambulance was there and she was bundling him into it and watching Dr Carlyle’s receding figure through the rear windows as the vehicle pulled away. The hospital was several miles out of town, a large district general facility with an elaborate façade. Jake began to cry as he was wheeled through the doors into the clinical-smelling corridor, and Chloe kept pace with the trolley, squeezing his hand.

The ear, nose and throat surgeon was kindness itself and put Jake at his ease quickly. Chloe watched the procedure through the viewing panel in one side of the operating theatre. She felt her own throat choke at how small her son was, draped in green on the table, and winced as she saw the length of the mounted needle the surgeon introduced into his open, unconscious mouth.

And at last it was over, Jake snoring in his bed in the children’s ward with Chloe sitting at his side, watching the steady rise and fall of his chest and the slow drip of the infusion set that snaked to his arm. He’d be on intravenous antibiotics for a few days, they’d said. Chloe had no intention of budging until he was ready to go home.

She kept up her vigil for three days, dozing in the armchair next to his bed, feeding off meals brought round for the young patients themselves. Mrs McFarland came round with clean clothes, sweets, fruit, picture books and balloons, but was careful not to outstay her welcome, Chloe was grateful to note. After initial howls of pain from his sore throat, Jake gradually regained some of his usual cheerfulness, and by the end of the second day he was exploring the rest of the ward and shyly interacting with his fellow patients.

At the end of the third day, Jake was awaiting his final dose of intravenous antibiotics before being discharged home. The doctors had pronounced themselves satisfied with his progress; the abscess had been drained, and it hadn’t recurred. Jake was having a nap, and Chloe, drained by fatigue, leaned back in her now-familiar armchair and closed her own eyes, relishing the peace and quiet of the late afternoon.

After the initial shock and panic, she’d had time to find out about the condition Jake was suffering from. He’d most likely had a low-grade tonsillitis for several days which she’d thought was a simple sore throat. The abscess had developed and grown rapidly, and according to what she’d read and been told, it might have progressed to cause obstruction to Jake’s breathing.

She might have lost her son.

For the first time the realisation of what might have happened hit her, and it was like a physical blow driving her back into her chair.

First Mark, and now Jake. She couldn’t have borne it.

Chloe thought about Dr Carlyle’s words to her in the surgery: you did the right thing. He was right, and yet he was wrong. The right thing would have been to bring Jake in earlier, when he first started feeling ill. Instead, not wanting to