Why Cameron is No Ordinary Kid - Part 2

Cameron

As we sat on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere we had to make a life and death decision, do we go back to town which was 30 minutes away or do we go forward to the next town that was 40 minutes away. At the time we were scared but we didn't realize that this decision was a turning point in our lives and dependent on which town we chose would decide which life we were then going to live.

After a discussion of the pros and cons we decided we would go forward because the next town had a small hospital. Your motherly instinct is to hold your child tight but we were about to drive very fast and we would possibly meet other cars and road trains so there was no choice, Cameron had to go back into his car seat. I sat next to him holding his tiny hand and telling him it would be okay. I'm not sure that I believed myself. I have no idea what speed we did but it was fast and we hoped a police car would pop out from behind a bush but of course the road was completely empty all the way.

We pulled into town and found the hospital. The carpark was empty, the place looked deserted. We jumped out of the car and raced up the stairs. We burst into an empty reception and stood there for a second not knowing what to do. All of a sudden a doctor appeared out of nowhere and scooped Cameron out of my arms. We followed him into emergency and stood and watched as he did everything he could.

We stripped Cameron off and had pedestal fans blowing on him. The doctor ran tests and put him on a drip, muttering to himself that he hated it when babies did this to him. He phoned the GP who had been treating Cameron and the doctor in the Kalgoorlie Hospital who had been consulting and after a discussion it was agreed that we were now a top priority transfer and the Royal Flying Doctor service was called, we needed to be transferred to Kalgoorlie.

This doctor guessed that Cameron had Meningitis but we were in a little country town hospital and he did not have the medications he needed to treat Cameron. He did everything he could.

Cameron was now collecting medical attachments - drips, monitors, etc. We needed an ambulance transfer to get out to the air strip. The call went out for the towns ambulance and there was a slight problem - it was lunch time and the ambulance was at the local mechanics being serviced. The garage was locked. It took a while to find people and retrieve the ambulance but eventually we were ready for our first ambulance transfer of the day.

There was just one more problem and you should have seen the look on the doctors face when we said - 'There's a problem, we have Bo in the car.'
'What? You left a child in your car this whole time?'
'No, a dog.'
He was so relieved but this was a big problem. We couldn't leave the car there in the hospital carpark because what would happen to Bo. Poor Michael had to make the sacrifice and drive to Kalgoorlie, we had no choice but we wanted to stay together.

The ambulance arrived, Cameron was loaded and I had my first ambulance trip, Michael followed in the car to the air strip. We stood on the tarmac and watched as the RFDS landed and the crew walked towards us. Imagine my surprise when it dawned on me that walking towards me was the nurse who had helped to deliver Cameron 5 1/2 months earlier. So there in the middle of all this fear and craziness I was hugging this wonderful woman and feeling so happy to see a familiar face.