A Mother's Trial Read Online Free Page A

hesitated. “Well, it could all be tied in with the CMV; it could all be relevant.”
    “I still think it’s the flu. It’s got to be that,” Priscilla said. Sara did not answer.
    Mindy continued stooling, fussing, and crying throughout the afternoon. The Cho-free formula was being dripped, drop by measured drop, into her NG tube. The IV continued in the cut-down, miraculously still holding in her right arm. Priscilla stayed with her, held her. Occasionally she took a break, wandering out to the little kitchen down the hall to grab a Diet Pepsi from the stock she was able to keep in the refrigerator there or stopping at the nurses’ station for a chat. Then she returned and kept watch over her daughter.
    At seven that evening, the nurse came in to give Mindy her medication. Priscilla watched the woman carefully because already that afternoon she had had to stop the same nurse from administering medication before it was due. Both the NG tube and the IV line were hooked up to separate pumps that precisely regulated the flow of formula and IV solution. Mindy was a mass of lines and tubing. The quinacrine that Sara had ordered to treat giardia was to be injected directly into the NG tube through one of the many joints in the tubing. But the tubing for both the IV and the NG were identical. And the nurse injected the medication in the wrong one.
    For a moment Priscilla stood frozen as she watched the yellowish quinacrine entering the vein at the site of Mindy’s cut-down. Then she screamed.
    “It’s the wrong one! It’s the wrong one!” And as the nurse hurriedly cut off the flow of medication, Priscilla ran hysterically into the hall of the ward after Dr. Arnhold, shrieking his name.
    Priscilla watched as an Unusual Incident form was filled out. Approximately two cubic centimeters of quinacrine had entered Mindy’s vein instead of her gastrointestinal tract. This kind of thing happened in hospitals. Priscilla had seen it several times before, and that was one reason why she so carefully checked all of the procedures. She knew medical personnel were fallible. But that didn’t help her deal with this mistake despite Dr. Arnhold’s assurance that it was unlikely to cause a problem.
     And there was a problem. Mindy had become confused and hysterical. She screamed and struggled and twisted until Priscilla thought her arms would burst with the effort of holding her. Priscilla talked to her and bounced her to no effect. Mindy suddenly started tearing at the dressing over the cut-down in her elbow in an attempt to rip the needle out of her vein. And then she began to pull at the NG tube, fighting it, trying to tear it out.
    Finally Priscilla called out for help. Dr. Arnhold was summoned. Priscilla knew him well. He had been the pediatrician for Erik and Jason before he had left the country on a long sabbatical and she had changed to Sara.
    “Priscilla, if she doesn’t stop doing that, we’re going to have to tie her down. You know that cut-down is too precious to lose, and her stomach is in no shape to deal with bottle feedings, so we need the NG drip, too. We can’t have her pulling that out.”
    Priscilla reacted instantly. “My God, Dr. Arnhold! First you half kill her with the quinacrine in the IV, and now, when she gets upset about it, you want to tie her down?” The tears were tracking unnoticed down her face.
    “Well—” began Arnhold.
    “I’ll stay with her!” Priscilla interrupted, her voice echoing throughout the ward. “Let me stay with her! I’ll see that she doesn’t pull out the lines!”
    “Well, if you think you can, all right,” Arnhold relented. So she had stayed.
    Now it was midnight and Mindy was throwing up and stooling and deteriorating noticeably. Finally the nurse phoned the doctor on call. Mindy was ordered NPO. Nil per os. The medical shorthand for nothing by mouth. Even all the medications, for the time being, would be held. The nurse clamped off the NG tube, leaving it in place.