Sally's World

I'm quite glad the last couple of blogs have been more light hearted in nature, because this one isn't.

Since we've started these blogs I've been getting e-mails asking me about that moment when we knew we'd lost Aaron. And although I've generally been applying these blogs to the e-mails I've been recieving, this is a subject I seem to have avoided. So today I decided to bite the bullet and insert the passage out of Aaron's book which describes that moment.This isn't one for the light hearted among us, so it's completely your choice whether to read on or not.

Sal x

“I was in a perfectly good mood as I walked into Aaron’s room to get my morning cuddle; I was still humming the Postman Pat theme tune that was stuck in my head thanks to Aaron’s three o’clock viewing programming. Aaron was laying on his front asleep, I didn’t think too much of it except to say that he never normally slept on his front, I asked him what he was doing and I rolled him over.

This is an image that will be ingrained in my heart and mind for the rest of my life, Aaron was pale and his breathing shallow, he tried to look at me but he couldn’t seem to open his eyelids properly. I screamed for Dave and screamed for the phone, I dialled 999, I looked at Dave and I could see the fear in his eyes.

The lady on the end of the phone was talking to me, telling me how to do CPR, I was breathing into Aarons mouth for two breaths, then fifteen compressions on his chest, breathe again, fifteen more compressions, it could only have been two minutes but it felt like a lifetime. I thought I could feel a pulse, but it was really weak.

The ambulance people burst in and took over, they put him on the floor and were working on him. We were helpless, staying out of the way because we couldn’t do anything, they were attaching pads to his chest to shock him, they tried to intubate him but couldn’t get the tube down. It was mad, all the equipment, all the bleeping, we were all crying and telling Aaron how much we loved him, how he could do it, he was strong, not to leave us. Somewhere in the middle of it, Dave rang his brother John to come to watch the kids so we could go to the hospital.

The ambulance man picked Aaron up and carried him to the ambulance; I just numbly followed them out, because above all else, I knew that I had to be with him. They were pumping his chest and breathing for him all the way to the hospital. I think I was in a daze by then, this wasn’t real, this wasn’t what Aaron did, he was playing, he’d wake up any minute now, he just wanted a cool ride with the lights flashing.

When we got to the hospital, the back doors were flung open and we all leapt out, then they swung the stretcher and Aaron out and we all hit the pavement running.

We burst into the hospital to a waiting team of doctors, they wanted me to go to a room with a nurse, “No,” I shouted, and they knew I meant it. The doctors were shocking Aarons heart, giving him adrenalin, they were asking about time, I could do nothing but watch them try and save him, where was Dave?, I needed Dave.

Dave walked into the room and I saw Robyn walking behind him, he was saying she wouldn’t let him leave the house without her, she was like that, she had even packed Aaron a little bag, bless her heart. The nurse led Robyn away and I just collapsed in Dave’s arms, the doctors were saying there was nothing more they could do, I could hear someone screaming “NO, NO,” over and over again, then I realised that it was me!

The doctors and nurses all moved away from the bed, I grabbed Aaron and gathered him up in my arms, this couldn’t be right, he just looked like he was sleeping soundly, he was still warm, surely this wasn’t it. How was I ever going to have the strength to let him go? I just clung on to him, Dave one side, me the other, both sobbing, both feeling as helpless as each other, it was just way too awful to contemplate.

The doctors were talking, they needed to take some of Aaron’s blood and urine to help them see exactly what had happened, we said o.k. I gently laid Aaron on the bed and let them put their arms round me to guide me away from him. Then we were led off into a little room, where the nurse was already sitting with Robyn. Robyn stared at me, eyes wide, shaking her head ‘no,’ I sat down and hugged her tight, and she started screaming too. How on earth do you explain this to children, it is harder than you could ever imagine. I kept telling her what a brilliant sister she was; Aaron couldn’t have wished for a better sister.

Dave Rang John and told him to bring the children, they had to say goodbye to their big brother; we knew John would need to see him too. I think then we all just sat there in a state of shock. As we walked out of that room to go back to Aaron, John walked in to the hospital, I threw myself at him, and he was sobbing too, what would we all do without Aaron?

The kid’s looked so little and lost standing there, they had tears running down their faces, us and John too, and I hadn’t a clue what to say. Jordan just kept saying over and over how “he can’t be gone” he kept repeating how he’d only been reading a book to him the day before and couldn’t quite let it all sink in, he wasn’t the only one. Deion looked so little so frightened.”