One Mother's Diary: A bed-time story

Tuesday 29th January 1 am


Has it gone midnight? And are some children still awake? Then now is the time for night-time tales. Are you ready for your bedtime story? Have you brushed your teeth? Oh, but first let me explain; these tales come not from the riverbank, these tales come from the cupboard that parents hope they will never have to open; a metal closet reeking of chloroform and antiseptic: these tales come from a dark place called despair.


Here is the first tale and it comes all the way from bonnie Scotland! Are you ready? Are you really ready? Then I’ll begin. There once was a tiny tenement where a mammy and daddy lived with the three little boys. (Oh, beware, my lovelies, the evil doctor Gallen! He will ask for your money, he will ask for your money!) Every day the three little boys went out to play but one day the eldest boy, a thin child called Hugh, returned home early because he had a pain in his tummy. (Oh, beware my lovelies, the evil doctor Galen! He will take your money; he will take your money!) His mammy let him sip hot, sugared tea from a spoon but he didn’t get any better; in fact, he just got worse. And by and by, as Hugh rolled on the bed his parents realised that they would have to send for a doctor. (Oh, beware my lovelies, the evil Dr Gallen! He drinks too much, he drinks too much!) Now, children, this was a big decision for parents to make in 1937 as it was before the invention of a something called The National Health Service and if you needed to see a doctor, well, it wasn’t free. (Oh, don’t let him in! Don’t let him in!) Families had to pay to see the doctor even if it was just to see a wee, small child with a pale, freckled face. So Hugh’s mammy and daddy emptied their savings time and sent for their local doctor. (Don’t answer the door, don’t answer the door!) Hugh’s mammy was desperate when the doctor entered their kitchen but, before he would even look at wee Hugh, the doctor held out his hand for payment. Once the money had been handed over, the doctor made his diagnosis and it was as they had suspected: acute appendicitis. Doctor Gallen packed his stethoscope away and promised to telephone for an ambulance directly he returned to his house. (Oh, why did you believe him? Why did you believe him?)


Unfortunately, Dr Gallen decided he was thirsty on the way home and took a wee drink and then he took another. After his fourth he had completely forgotten about the little boy with the pale face beaded in sweat. Hours later, when Hugh’s mammy and daddy realised that no ambulance was coming, and after they had sent for another doctor from a neighbouring district in Glasgow, Hugh was eventually admitted to hospital.


Little Hugh, like all poorly and scared children, did not want his mammy to leave him but, back in those days, parents were never allowed on the ward with their children. Well, not until they had died.

‘To be honest,’ Calum’s paternal grandfather once remarked to me, ‘I can’t remember anything before the age of ten but I do remember my mother pointing out a man to me one day when I was about eight. She said – that’s the doctor who murdered your elder brother – that’s doctor Gallen.’


That wasn’t a very nice bed-time story, was it? I will try harder next time, but go to sleep now, it is way past your bed time.

I look across at Calum in the half light of the ward. I am trying to sleep on the pull down bed which, the night previously, he was adamant I wouldn’t be using. ‘I don’t want my mum sleeping next to me! I’m almost fifteen!’ All that changed after his operation. Still in shock, I’m trying not to remember how Calum was when he came round in recovery. He was in so much pain; screaming and twisting on the bed. (Why didn’t I demand the nurses call for a doctor? Why didn’t I scream and shout? Why was I so compliant?) There was now no question that I would leave him alone on the ward and retreat back to the room I had booked.

Calum is having difficulty getting comfortable let alone sleeping and complains continually of ‘the light’. There is that twilight; a half light of greyness which is ever present on hospital wards throughout the night. I assume it is this that is bothering him. At home he is accustomed to total darkness of his bedroom at night. (Later we will discover that following the operation Calum has been left with a form of temporary facial paralysis in the left side of his face and is unable to fully close his left eye.)

Calum asks for some more water. I hold the glass with the straw to his mouth. He signs, ‘When will the pain go, when will the pain go?’ The nurses are giving him a syrup paracetamol solution every four hours. It seems to make little difference, if any. I feel totally useless and completely miserable.


Around midnight Calum appears to have fallen asleep. I get up and walk to the kitchen at the far end of ward. This room is at the disposal of parents, it contains a couch, a low, coffee table, a sink and a microwave. A man is trying to sleep on the coach. As I enter he sits up. He asks what I am here for. I tell him that my son has had an operation for bi-lateral implants: that we will only be here for one night. Our sons are of a similar age. He tells me his story. His son started to experience bouts of crashing head-aches over six months ago. At first their GP prescribed pain-killers on the assumption that the head-aches would pass. Later the diagnosis was changed to neuralgia and stronger pain-killers were prescribed. It was only when he began to lose the feeling on one side of his face that he was referred to a specialist. I forget I am holding a teaspoon in my hand, I just listen to the story the conclusion of which I already know: his son has cancer. ‘I am so sorry’ is all that I can say. He tells me about his work, his wife’s occupation, how his son was getting on at school, how normal their lives were until the diagnosis. I realise that his son is in the bed next to Calum’s though with the curtains pulled around all of the beds you would not know what private anguish your neighbour is going through. Calum’s pain will be short-lived, the pain of that family may well last forever.

‘I’ll let you get some sleep.’

I hurry back to Calum; he is awake.

‘Where have you been?’ He signs. ‘I’m thirsty – can I have some more water?’ As I hold the cup to his lips a nurse appears with more paracetamol solution. In the half light his face looks distorted beneath the turban of bandages. We both lie down. We both sleep. But I am awake, Calum wants some more water. This time he settles before me. I suddenly feel terribly hungry. I have left some pieces of homemade pizza in the communal fridge in the ward kitchen. I had bought them in for Calum but he has been unable to eat. Walking back to the kitchen the light is shining brightly; the father is no longer on the couch. A young woman with blonde hair pulled back into a pony tail is stabbing the outer plastic casing of a ready-meal with a fork.

‘Oh, hello!’ A broad smile spreads across her face. ‘Hello,’ I reply, instantly cheered by her warm welcome.

She shows me her ready-meal dinner, ‘Appetising isn’t it?’ She pouts and we both laugh. ‘I’ve been living on this type of food for months’.

It is time for another bedtime story. She wants to tell me and I listen. It was her first baby; they had been so elated, both of their families had been so excited by the prospect of the first grand-child. And it was a girl; a beautiful baby girl. But then, quite early on, things started to go wrong. She would stop breathing. Just like that. And then she started fitting. And then began the long process of hospital stays and tests. And then it seemed that they were never at home, always on the ward. And then the hospital put them in touch with a charity which offered parents rooms on the hospital campus.

‘How long have you been here now?’ I ask.

Three months. She stabs the plastic covering of her ready meal again. But, this time, her stabs are slower and her whole demeanour has changed.

‘I am so sorry,’ I say. I touch her shoulder. She turns to face me and asks,

‘Why are you here? What does your child have?

‘Oh nothing, nothing,’ I hastily reply, ‘just a routine operation to help with his hearing.’ I pause. ‘We are just here for one night’

‘Oh that’s a shame she says,’ and then quickly adds, ‘I mean for me!’ She laughs. I have met so many nice people here but we all pass like ships in the night.’

And like ships in the night we glide out of the kitchen and take our food back to our children’s bedsides.

I am thinking how lucky I am that Calum is healthy and that he has a future life ahead of him with so many opportunities, surprises and prospects as yet unknown. I am thinking how lucky we are that we can stay beside our children to comfort them when they are in pain and scared of the dark or of the light.

I think of Calum’s paternal great grand-mother and of how she was not allowed onto the hospital ward until all the life had left her little Hugh’s thin, pale body.

By the time morning comes I am a sea of conflicting emotions. Calum is still in pain and when the bandages are unwound from his head it rapidly become apparent that he cannot control the left side of his face. I panic. I ask for the doctor, I ask for the specialist nurse. The nurse reassures me that it will only be temporary but her worried expression sends an entirely different message.

‘How soon can we leave?’ I ask the ward sister.

I want to get Calum home. As we walk out of the quiet and sombre ward into the stark lights of the hospital food concourse I feel totally confused.

Driving home I can feel an anger rising in me. We went into the hospital on what seems now to have been a ridiculously high note. How had I so easily forgotten all my former and long held objections to cochlear implants? What sort of an idiot mother was I?

Back home, Calum dissolves into tears in his bedroom. 

‘My head hurts so much and when will my face be normal again?’

I do what no parent should ever do and, instead of comforting him, burst into tears beside him.

There are many thoughts going through my head right now but the main one, the one which is screaming to be heard is this: I hope all this is worth it.

I just hope it’s bloody worth it.


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