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Gabby Carter

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Gabby was coming up to her first birthday, she was still a puny little thing, but so adorable she was so happy and content, she had her ups and downs…but nothing she could not contend with because she stayed so small I had kept Gabby in her pram, one morning about three weeks before her first birthday I thought I would give her a treat, I was taking my elder daughter ShaNeen to infant school, so I put Gabby in her new lie back buggy, she would be able to see the busy going ons of the world around her. It was eight thirty in the morning when ShaNeen, Gabby and I left the house, it was very cold... but a bright sunny day, the frost on the ground glistened like hardened rainbows, Gabby was well wrapped up so I knew she would not be cold, the last thing I wanted was for her to get another chest infection. Ten minutes into the walk to school I felt so at peace with the world, ShaNeen skipped ahead in front of us, and Gabby craned her neck to look at everything around her. Twenty minutes later Gabby was screaming as though she was in agony, she writhed and squirmed so much it seemed as though she was trying to get out the buggy. I just could not fathom what was wrong with her, she did want her dummy, she did not want picked up.... and as far as I could tell it was not a tummy pain... there was no blue tinge around her lips which would have been an indication that she was in difficulty with her heart. I dropped ShaNeen off at the school then rushed to town to get some shopping, doing it as quickly as I could... Gabby had not stopped screaming at all, I ran all the way back home with her, thinking I could comfort her when we got back and she would calm down. I got home... threw the shopping into the kitchen and got Gabby out of the buggy. My thoughts were... perhaps it was the buggy... she didn't like it? Maybe she just wanted back in her pram? She was still sobbing as I picked her up... then I ripped off her clothes... a sudden terrible thought that the nappy pin had come open and was sticking into her? But it wasn’t. It was fine, by this time she had quieted down a little, but sobs still wracked her little body. I cuddled and kissed her, bathed and changed her, gave her a drink then put her down in her cot, she was totally exhausted and whatever it was that had seemed to trouble her... had passed.

I put the terry nappy I had taken off Gabby into soak with others, ready to be washed later, I always put them into a solution before washing so they would come out white again, but, as I put the nappy in I wondered why the nappies all had a blackcurrant like stain on them? Strange... Gabby never drank anything but orange juice, still... they would be fine once washed and didn't think about it again.

Gabby awoke about twelve thirty, as I went into her bedroom and looking down at her I saw that she had very puffy eyes, picking her up I decided it must be due to all the crying she had done that morning, Gabby had a ritual at lunchtime, she would have a few cheesy puffs in a bowl while I heated up her food, I would hold the bowl and hand them to her one by one, as she reached out for one I noticed her fingers were swollen too, on closer examination so were the backs of her hands, by three o-clock that afternoon her face was swollen like a balloon...her eyes were nothing but slits...finger and hands looking like they were about to burst, I collected ShaNeen from school then and rushed up to the hospitals children’s ward once again.

Whilst Gabby was being examined I thought this was probably all caused by edema due to the heart condition... but, after various tests the doctor said her heart was fine, all still under control, they were baffled, but wanted to keep her in overnight for observations just in case, I left the hospital at eight o-clock that night.

When I walked into the ward the following morning a sight awaited me that I will never be able to get out of my mind for the rest of my life.... Gabby was sitting in one of those bouncy baby sling back type chairs inside her cot, undergoing a blood transfusion... the needle and line had been put into her head... her head having been shaved where a parting of hair had once been on the left side, her little hands had been strapped down so that she couldn't pull the needle out.... tears were silently running down her cheeks. And she was furiously sucking on the huge pink dummy she held in her mouth, as soon as she saw me, she smiled and gulped a sob down at the same time my heart leaped out for her, I couldn't even console her with a cuddle, she was restricted to the chair, all I could do was plant kisses all over her still terribly swollen face, it transpired that the doctors still did not know what was wrong with her but they had discovered her blood count very low hence, the reason for the transfusion.

The next morning when I arrived she was standing up in her cot waiting for me... she no longer had the line in....but her head was a grotesque shape, her left eye had shut completely.... she had tissued, which meant instead of the of the line going into a vein it had collapsed and gone under the skin, after being told this the doctor said, "don’t worry though.... they would relocate the line elsewhere in her head!"

I went absolutely mad.... and told them no way, were they going to do anymore to her! She obviously was distressed and as far as I was concerned they were going to do no more to her she had suffered enough. They agreed, she was distressed... and so was I! They would leave it but still keep her in for a few more days still under observation. On the third day of Gabby's stay in hospital the swelling had almost gone down, it was lovely to see her little face nearly back to normal, the doctors still had no clue as to what had caused this, but suggested was perhaps she had had, an allergic reaction to something, so, racking my brain I tried to think what it could be, I knew it wasn't due to any change in her diet as she was such a fussy eater, she was still eating and drinking the same things she always had, neither could I say it was washing powder...that had not changed either. Gabby came out of hospital on the fourth day so full of herself and happy to be home, the next day we noticed slight scabs coming up on her nose knees, forehead, and the backs of her hands, the scabs were not large and resembled hard skin, such as you would find on the soles of your feet, they caused no discomfort and with bathing and moisturising they soon came away. I decided to put Gabby back in her pram for a few more weeks, remembering the last episode of her in her buggy put me in a cold sweat, I had the stupid notion that it could be the fabric on the new buggy that caused the so called allergy.

As the weeks went by and the weather became warmer I decided to give the buggy another go. The results were a nightmare. The same thing happened all over again, ten to fifteen minutes after going out Gabby just screamed and screamed and did not stop until we got back in the house.

The swelling appeared again, after four days or so it went down, then the scabs returned. This went on until the end of summer, visits to the hospital and to my own doctor proved fruitless, I had kept saying that it seemed to happen on sunny days, but it was always dismissed. Just before Gabby's second birthday she was in one hell of a mess. I had tried to keep her out the sunlight as much as possible and covered with a sun canopy at all times, it was a total waste of time, Gabby's face was a mass of huge black scabs... thick and crusty and the backs of her hands had gone the same way, and she was in terrible pain with them. On one visit to the doctors Gab was referred to the dermatologist, who was based up at the military hospital. I was given creams for her which were no help at all, in fact all they did do was leave a horrible yellow stain on her skin and on everything else it came into contact with.

This time the scabs seemed to take an eternity to clear up. And when they finally did... they left deep scars... A little after this episode a new doctor had joined the practice.... and she was marvelous, after one particular visit to her she wrote a letter for me to take up to the dermatologist at the hospital, she did not tell me exactly what was in the letter, but that it was just a shot in the dark, and was putting it to him that Gabby just might have a condition that was very rare.

Trudging up the hill once again to the hospital I wondered why I was even bothering, it seemed to be a barrage of questions with no answers to any of them, a mountain of creams in the cupboard that were bloody useless, and poor Gabby whose face was now permanently covered with these awful scabs which would also get septic, so once again on continual antibiotics.

By this time I was getting paranoid about the way she looked... but only because of the comments that thought less people came out with... not even discreetly.... just right out loud... they would peer right down and say things like..."What’s happened to her then? Has she been burned? Has she got eczema?"

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