My little girl

Sometimes when I sit down to write, all the words in the world seem inadequate for what I have experienced, felt. This is such a time. I have not written about my little girl sooner because I wasn't sure how it would come across, how I would express so many emotions.

I have been visiting her since before the ship arrived. We found her on a hospital ward, a large retinoblastoma tumour growing from her eye socket and obscuring one side of her face. The cancer had also started to cause swelling and growth to the side. She was in so much pain the hospital only having given her paracetamol. The dressing to her eye was being changed regularly at the hospital but also in such a way that caused the tumour to bleed profusely and intensified her pain and distress. We agreed to take her home. My first paediatric patient. I was jumping in at the deep end.

For the past few weeks I have been visiting 3 times weekly to change her dressings. I managed to reduce the bleeding and trauma by changing the dressings used. But she still hated it and hated me for doing it! Each time we arrived she only had to hear my voice and she would start crying. Now for me who is not a paediatric nurse, I am not used to being the object of hate to my patients. I can do a nursing procedure and know that the person will understand why I am doing it, however painful. But with a child it is very, very different. The regular medication that I put her on reduced her pain, allowing her to play a small amount with her cousins and be a child again. However the most worrying thing was the speed at which the tumour to the side of her face was growing. At every visit we could see it expanding, pushing through the skin and extending into her neck. I knew that her body would not give up before the growth in her neck started to occlude her arteries, oesophagus and trachea.

Last Sunday her mother gave birth to her little brother. Such a blessing in her time of pain. Each time we visited last week, I would ask his name. And I would get the same reply - we are waiting for the father (who works away) to decide the name. He had his naming ceremony yesterday. One hour later my little girl passed away. What exactly caused her death, I do not know and the family could not say. When we arrived for our usual visit this morning I could see it in their faces before they told me. I knew what was coming. We sat and wept with the mother who clutched her son tightly to her chest. No words could express the sorrow I felt watching a mother grieve for her child. All I know now is that she is at peace and in God's hands. I am sure that I will get more paediatric patients before the year is out but she will always hold a special place in my heart as the first.