Uniquely Tiffany

'A Desperate Plea'

Wide-eyed, traumatised, I watched as they tried their utmost to save Tiffany, whose complexion was now deep purple, her lips virtually black. My stomach churned. I felt weak, helpless. Was I having a bad dream, a nightmare? Or was it someone else’s story? The mere thought of Tiffany dying at that point seemed real, too frighteningly real. My lips quivered. My heart raced. Tears poured.

Quite abruptly, the doctors and nurses stopped their ministrations and looked at each other, this time more intently, a “this-is-it” look. Eventually, my little girl – the fighter, the miracle – started to regain some colour. All present were relieved. Feeling like a piece of driftwood battered by high seas, and regurgitated onto some beach, and dried out, I returned to bed.

But sleep was as far away as Venus. As I lay, restless, looking around the semi-dark ward through the fog of tears watching the nurses, and the efficiency with which they worked, my eyes shifted to the bed opposite where the mother sat guardedly over her painfully thin daughter. That mother couldn’t sleep either. I knew, as I wiped my eyes, exactly how she was feeling: worried sick, exhausted, saturated in fear and desperately alone.

"This book is a good read for anyone with children - with disabilities, or not. Tiffany's story shows how lucky she was to have had such a loving family who always tried to treat her as ' normal'." I would thoroughly recommend reading it.

Fiona Copeland, Milton Keynes, UK