There’s such a stark difference between her and the other 5 year olds in the ward you can’t help wonder how someone left her like this for so long? Did they think it was normal for a 5 year old to stop running, stop playing, stop laughing?
Sammy is 5 but she looks about 80. A real life Benjamin Button. She weighs 10 kilograms - skin and bone and Disseminated TB. Her hair has that coppery malnutrition tint. Her big eyes are sad and tired.
The first few days she really just lay there...drifting in and out of sleep. To weak to fight drips and bloods and NG tubes with more than a little crying.
She’s so far gone I don’t know if we got to her in time. Even though she seems to be turning the corner slowly she still has a long way to go around the bend. All of us in the ward are being quietly optimistic but cautiously realistic that despite all our best measures she may slip away quietly and suddenly.
Too beautiful though was yesterday morning.
About a week ago, just after she got to us - Father Christmas came to visit. With minstrels and carolers he wandered around the wards and handed out Christmas presents.
Looking at her you’ve got to wonder if she even really knows what Christmas is. Regardless - Sammy was far too sick to realise he was there. Too weak to open a present, it lay next to her bed for days.
Yesterday - I don’t know if she spotted it or if one of the nurses pointed it out to her but the wrapping paper came off.
Inside was one of those R20 Barbie dolls...I wish you could have seen her little face.
Propped up, but still too weak to change the outfits one of the nurses helped her put the Barbie’s shoes on.
We watched through the glass that looks into the isolation room. She managed a wave, and one whole Niknak.
Her smile - probably the first one any of us have seen - was bigger than her little body.
It would have melted my heart if it was the middle of June.
If I get nothing else for Christmas other than that little smile, to see that little flicker of a real 5 year old - there is nothing more that I need.
