Crying for Help: The Shocking True Story of a Damaged Girl with a Dark Past. Casey Watson

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СКАЧАТЬ on being allowed in with her, shouldn’t we? Don’t you think? It feels all wrong not to be in there. How odd.’

      Mike shrugged. ‘What’s new? Everything seems bizarre about this child. Run of the mill, she isn’t. Why should this be any different?’

      ‘But why the “private” thing? What’s he privy to that we’re not allowed to know about? I mean, I understand the whole business of patient confidentiality. But she’s a child. And she’s in care. And it’s our job to care for her. So if there are things we should know and which are important and no one’s telling us …’

      Mike squeezed my knee. ‘Don’t fret, love. We’ll be in there soon enough. And we can ask. Perhaps we’ll get a chance to have a word with the doctor on our own at some point. In the meantime, I need a coffee. The heat in this place is making me sleepy … You want one?’

      ‘Do bears live in the woods?’ I asked him, grinning.

      While Mike wandered off in search of a vending machine, I idly flicked through the magazine I’d brought with me. But only a couple of minutes later the doctor’s door flew open and a stressed-looking nurse came rushing out, clutching a purse. I was then shocked to see her rushing back, only half a minute afterwards, now holding a bottle of water and a bag of peanuts. Blimey, I thought, poor love. Talk about NHS cutbacks – were their tea breaks now measured in seconds, or what? Mike ambled up with our coffees soon after, and I was just about to share my little witticism with him when he said, ‘You see that?’, nodding towards Dr Wyatt’s consulting room. ‘That was apparently for Sophia. Had a bit of a turn, by all accounts. Brain fog, the woman called it. Needed an immediate protein boost.’

      ‘Oh, my God,’ I said, panicked. ‘Should we go in?’

      Mike shook his head. ‘Apparently not. I did ask her at the machine. But she said she’d fetch us in once they’d sorted things out.’

      I took the coffee from him. ‘I don’t know about you,’ I said, ‘but this Addison’s thing scares me. It’s clearly a serious illness and we know nothing about it. Nothing. How on earth are we going to cope when it’s just her and us?’ I meant it, as well. Just how would we cope? I had no confidence that half an hour with Dr Wyatt was going to help much. This was obviously something that could come on and be life threatening at any moment, and for the third time in as many days I repeated the same mantra – that I mustn’t fret, that it was short term, that we wouldn’t have her long … but how dreadful, I thought guiltily, to be wishing a kid away when she’d only been with us five minutes!

      Mike, who could read my mind – well, most of the time, anyway – put a reassuring arm around my shoulder. ‘Stop worrying, love, eh? Think about it logically. They wouldn’t have trusted us to care for her if they didn’t think we could cope, would they? Let’s just see what the doctor says and take it from there. And remember what they say about women and teabags …’

      I laughed. He was right, as I’d proved to myself often. You really didn’t know how strong you were till they put you in hot water. And becoming a foster carer, above all, had proved to me that I was one hell of a lot stronger and more capable than I could ever have thought.

      I sipped my coffee, awaited our summons and tried to think positively about things. But I didn’t know then, though I very soon would, just how hot this water was going to turn out to be …

      Chapter 4

      Addison’s, clearly, was a very frightening disease. Despite Dr Wyatt’s cheerful, matter-of-fact manner, this wasn’t something Mike and I could listen to lightly.

      Our all-you-need-to-know lesson wasn’t long, but it was complex, so I was grateful that the doctor passed us various leaflets and brochures as he spoke, which we could take away to digest more fully later, along with a big box of medication, which included the steroid injection paraphernalia I’d read about and which scared me. I hated everything about injections.

      But the reality of the disease hit home straight away. Sophia’s Addison’s disease meant her adrenal glands no longer functioned, which had implications for all sorts of bodily processes. The two vital hormones she needed – cortisol and aldosterone – had to be replaced by taking daily medication – several times a day – and though it seemed this was usually sufficient to manage it, all sorts of things could affect how much she needed, including eating patterns, how well she was and how much stress she was under. If she didn’t get those hormones, via the tablets she was taking, she would die – it was as stark a fact as that. She had, therefore, to be mindful of taking her tablets at all times; an onerous responsibility for anyone, let alone a child – and when you factored in the appalling circumstances of this particular child’s life … well, it was a pretty sobering thing to even think about.

      On a practical level, it was all about discipline. She had to eat regularly, and follow a diet that, though not that restrictive generally, prohibited the sort of random snacking on junk that other children of her age so often tended towards. Her medication did, as Jean had said, mean she could easily put on weight, something that would make her condition even harder to manage, as well as having negative psychological effects.

      The worst-case scenario, the doctor pointed out, would be the onset of an ‘Addisonian crisis’, as it was called. If she had one of them, as a result of either a high temperature or other stress, it really was a life-and-death situation. Hence the injection kit he’d given us. I could only hope we’d never have to use it.

      It was a hell of a lot to take in at one sitting, but we needed to try to get our heads around it all because, as Sophia’s carers, for however short a time, we had to have the means and knowledge to be able to put it into action.

      Sophia wasn’t with us now. When we’d been invited into the doctor’s office, where he sat behind an enormous desk, Sophia perched on a stool to one side, he’d suggested that she might like to go off with the nurse for some fresh air. After all, as he pointed out, grinning at both her and us, she was already something of an expert on Addison’s disease and didn’t need to sit through all the boring stuff.

      We’d taken the opportunity to bring up the slightly odd business of her being so adamant about seeing him alone. Wasn’t it all a bit cloak and dagger?

      ‘I know it seems that way, Mrs Watson,’ he’d agreed. ‘But unfortunately my hands are tied. There are certain parts of Sophia’s file that she doesn’t want disclosed, and I’m afraid that I have to respect that. All I can say is that they in no way affect her condition, nor do they hamper your ability to care for her.’

      Which, frustratingly, left us none the wiser.

      ‘The main thing,’ Dr Wyatt explained now, his medical briefing complete, ‘is, of course, that you become attuned to the symptoms of a steroid insufficiency. Headache and/or dizziness, nausea and/or vomiting, wobbly knees, fuzzy thinking – the thing is, at all costs, to avoid a full-on emergency, so it’s always better to be safe than sorry. Increasing her steroids temporarily won’t cause her any harm, though long term they very much can. But it’s all in the literature,’ he finished up, cheerfully. ‘And you can call us any time you have concerns. Oh, but one more thing.’ He nodded towards the door now. ‘There’s also low blood sugar to look out for. It’s another common problem with Addisonians, but easily dealt with. As happened just now, give her a small bag of peanuts or something. Some of my patients swear by things like scrambled eggs, too. It’s the protein boost that helps. You’ll find she craves salt as well. Just the one thing …’ He paused again.

      ‘What’s that?’ Mike asked him.

      ‘The СКАЧАТЬ