Almost two weeks later, Laura got a phone call from the nursing home. Her heart was hammering, desperate to be let out of its miserable prison, but the doctor’s update was not the one she’d been waiting for.
‘Mrs Cavendish, I’m afraid I have some bad news.’
‘What’s happened?’
‘I’m afraid Daniel’s no longer able to breathe unaided. He’s been readmitted to hospital and they’ve had to put him on the ventilator.’
Her world crashed yet again.
She was first to the hospital. The consultant came to speak to her immediately and explained that at nine twenty in the morning, Daniel had stopped breathing and as a consequence suffered a cardiac arrest. The team had successfully resuscitated him, but he was now back on a ventilator. Howard arrived in the middle of it all and she listened to it again, the words digging like knives into her heart. It was as if Daniel, after all this time, was slipping away, but she couldn’t understand why.
‘What caused it?’ she asked the consultant, desperate to make sense of the change.
‘He’s contracted pneumonia. I’m afraid that patients who are in his condition are highly susceptible to it.’
Laura lashed out from distress and frustration. ‘He can’t be perfectly fine one day and the next get pneumonia and have a heart attack – it doesn’t make sense!’
The consultant remained patient. ‘Mrs Cavendish, he’s not perfectly fine; he’s in a coma. It’s often difficult, or impossible, to predict the outcome of such an injury.’
It didn’t satisfy her. She felt as if she’d taken her eye off the ball, just routinely visiting and waiting, hoping. She should have been doing something.
‘We have to wait and see if he can regain the full use of his lungs,’ continued the consultant. ‘We’ll try taking him off the ventilator again later today, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll adjust it to encourage him to make more effort to breathe, but the machine will still support him.’
‘What if he has another arrest?’
The consultant paused. ‘He’s been in a coma for a long time. We have to think about what’s in his best interests.’
A growing horror took hold of Laura. ‘You mean, you might not . . . you might just let him die?’ she said incredulously.
‘Not necessarily. If it’s still your wish, we’ll do our best to resuscitate him.’
‘Yes, it is my wish!’ said Laura, tears springing.
When they were left alone, Howard and Laura sat in silence for a moment.
‘They’re doing their best,’ said Howard.
‘Are they?’
He was slightly shocked. ‘Yes, of course.’
‘Oh, Howard, I don’t mean to say they’re negligent or anything, and I know there are some amazing doctors here – he’s one of the best, after all – but I just feel we’ve been blindly letting this go on when we should have been keeping an eye on things.’ She went to sit beside him and held her hands together in her lap. ‘We’ve been here before, remember. What if we’d . . . I’d taken Rose to a hospital the minute she didn’t take her first feed?’
‘Now hold on—’
‘I know what you’re going to say, what everyone has always told me, that I did what I could, that I wasn’t to blame. But that question of “what if?” doesn’t just go away. And I promised, Howard, I promised that I’d always look after him; I’d watch out for him; I’d ask the questions that he wasn’t able to. I’d step up. He was my second chance.’
He rested a hand on hers. ‘So what do you suggest?’
‘There’s another guy . . . He’s American. I didn’t do anything because I thought we were in safe hands. We are in safe hands, but I want to increase our options. He’s newly employed at a private hospital in town, one that specializes in neurological conditions. Oh, I can’t bear it, Howard, what if we’re missing something? What if we’ve allowed ourselves to become complacent? I just think we should see him, get him to see Daniel.’
‘Won’t that mean moving him?’
‘Yes, but there’s everything in there that there is here and this consultant too. Dr Bell, his name is. I can make a call, and I bet it’s just a question of authorizing Chelsea and Westminster to move him and they’ll take care of the rest.’
‘Is it safe to move him, when he’s so ill?’
‘We can ask.’
Howard considered what his wife was saying and Laura mistook his silence for reluctance. Her voice cracked. ‘If he . . . doesn’t make it, Howard, I don’t think I’ll be able to live with myself knowing I didn’t try everything, to do the absolute best for him. This Dr Bell might say the same thing, but let’s at least get another assessment.’
Howard looked at her. They were two people lost, looking for any sort of rescue. As much of a long shot as it was, it was better than staying marooned on the island. ‘Let’s go and speak to the consultant here.’
They could tell the consultant didn’t think it would make much difference, but he didn’t prevent it and Daniel was moved to the Wellington Hospital by ambulance two days later. Laura was on her way there to see him when she remembered that Cherry was due to visit later that evening, as it was Thursday. She would be wondering what was going on as it had been a couple of days now since he’d left the nursing home. She made a call and spoke to one of the nurses she knew well there but was surprised to hear that Cherry hadn’t been in for a while.
‘She’s gone away,’ said the nurse. ‘Cancún for two weeks. Did she not say?’
Laura remembered their conversation. ‘Oh yes, yes, of course. When did she leave?’
‘Last Monday, I think.’
Laura was hopeful at her first appointment with Dr Bell, but unfortunately his assessment was much the same. Daniel wasn’t responding to being weaned off the ventilator. Three days after being admitted, he had another cardiac arrest. Laura and Howard were called to the hospital and Dr Bell gently warned that the situation did not look good.
‘I’m afraid it’s extremely likely that he may have another arrest very soon, and when they continue like this, it’s very difficult to keep the patient alive.’
‘How long?’ asked Laura.
‘It’s hard to say for sure, but it could be as soon as twenty-four or forty-eight hours.’