My golden child woke up and smiled at me as she normaly did, but it was faint whisper of a smile, a tentative look in her eye,a pathetic shadow of her normal heartbreaking beem that I got every morning. She was15 months old and the love of my life, my gift from a benevolent higher being, my suprise and my bonus prize all rolled into one ,and something was wrong. I wondered if it was yet another ear infection on its way, the weather was cold and the whole of plymouth shrouded in cold swirling sea fog, I had no phone and it was before mobiles, the thought of dragging her out in the cold to the doctor did not thrill me.

I got her up and she clung to me like a wet lettuce leaf clings to the inside of a salad bowl, passively hanging on, yet somehow stuck like glue.

"Eggy?" she asked. My daughter loved scrambled egg and so off we went to make it together, she on my hip watching me stir and her little face close to me, she kept sighing as if it was all just too mch effort. she ate the egg, but even before she had finished it, she turned a funny colour and the scrambled egg came back and hit the wall 10 feet away at about 30mph...holy shit that  was some upchuck!

I cleaned her up and we sat on the sofa reading a story together, she kept putting her hand over her eyes and then started saying "Ow, light ow". He tempreature was rising and  I feared the worst. I wrapped her up in all her clothes and ran down the road to the phone box to call the doctor, he said he would be there in about 20 minutes so I ran back to the house.

When he came he made me feel so foolish, he told me she had an ear infection and a fever and he gave me  prescription for antibiotics, the only problem was the nearest open chemist was on the other side of town and I had no car and a sick baby. He told me it was my problem and left.

So there I was stuck in the house, sick baby, no medicine , no phone  wondering what to do next. I looked at her again and realised she was worse, something was definaely wrong, I wrapped her up again and went to the phone box, I called 999 and the woman answered me...my heat was in my mouth, they would think I was stupid too, the operator was fantastic, she told me not to move, not to go anywhere, to cuddle my baby and she would send the ambulance straight away. I have never been so relieved or so frightened as when I saw that ambulance come out of the fog to stop by the phone box, the driver took my baby and looked  carefully at her, I got on  and he shot round to the front and he put on the siren and lights and we speed off down the road.

We got to the hosptal and they ran with her into casualty, a doctor met us here, they were firing questions at me, what did she eat, where had she been, was she allergic to anything,when did it start. I was a bit like a rabbit in the headlights, I answered all the questions and watched as they injected her and then they tried to get a drip into her little arms, she was so dehydrated that they couldnt do it,it wouldnt go in, she was distressed and crying and so was I.they asked me to leave, and stupidly I did (If they asked me to do that now id tell them to fuck off, but then i was alone, frightend  and young).

I stood outside in the fog, and I couldnt remember if her hair grew forwards or backwards, and was worried that if she died I would be able to remember...I was too frightend to go back into the room to face whatever and too frightened to stay away from her any longer incase these were the last few minutes we would have