TangXin District"Jinzhe! Something is wrong with the baby!"
Sheng Yu was screaming hysterically at her husband when she saw her baby was burning up.
"What is it?! What is going on with Xiaobo?!"
"I just want to his room and he isn"t moving even after picking him up!"
"And you left him there all by himself?"
"I..I didn"t know what to do...pl..please go check our baby."
Sheng Yu was shaking so badly, her lips trembled from dread from the possibility that her baby"s life was in danger.
"How could you leave him without calling the emergency line that the hospital gave to you?
Upset by his wife"s behavior, Sheng Jinzhe ran out of the bedroom to his son"s room which was next door. That was when he met every parents nightmare, his son was not moving any of his limbs, he simply wasn"t responding to the touch of his father.
It was ten at night when Sheng Yu made the discovery about her child, before hastily making her way to the bedroom she shared with her husband.
Pulling out the phone from his pocket, he speed dialed the number to the district emergency services. The phone rang once before it was picked up by the dispatcher on the other line.
"TangXin emergency service."
"Good evening this is Sheng Jinzhe on 96 Chaos.h.i.+shan Rd, my son doesn"t look like he is breathing, he was born two months ago, please we need an ambulance as soon as possible!"
"96 Chaos.h.i.+shan Rd, we will have an ambulance dispatched to your home in about five to seven minutes at the most. Please do not move the child, the paramedics would take care of that."
"Thanks, I and my wife would be waiting for the ambulance to get here."
The line went dead, while both Sheng Jinzhe and his wife continued to pace inside a room decorated in blue with colorful wall papers and toys littered around. The two month old child lay in a pajamas of colorful blue pajamas with cat print.
Shen Jinzhe picked up the phone by the wall of his son"s room to dial the phone downstairs.
"Good evening, Sheng residence."
It was a female that picked up and from the sound of it, she appeared to be one of the people that worked in the home of the Shengs.
"Ms. Buo, an ambulance would be arriving shortly to take Xiaobo to the hospital, when they arrive show them to his room.
"Very well Vice President Sheng, I would bring them to the room of young master Xi."
"That would be all."
The phone was abruptly cut off by Sheng Jinzhe, as the maid a woman in her late forties gently placed the phone back to its cradle from where she picked it.
Sheng Yu was already going crazy with worry, each minute felt like a lifetime to her.
"When are they coming?"
"The man I spoke with said they would be here in less than ten minutes."
"Ten minutes! By then my baby would be dead!"
"Yu! Please! Just stop! If you were that worried then shouldn"t you have called for an ambulance the moment you saw that Xiaobo wasn"t even moving at all!"
"I panicked okay! I did what any sane person would do when thrown into a circ.u.mstance like mine!"
"Stop making excuses, running to get me was not what you should have done, you have your cellphone, don"t you? Then why didn"t you call for help!"
Beating her hand against her chest, Sheng Yu began to blame herself for her son"s condition.
"I admit I was wrong, I should have called, oh G.o.d! I feel so stupid!"
Too distraught by the condition of his son, Sheng Jinzhe was not listening to his wife lamenting at her negligence.
His hand held on to the wooden cradle where his son lay unconscious, his red rimmed eyes gazed on the still face of his son while fighting the awful feeling of helplessness that dwelt inside of him.
A short while later, the blaring sound of approaching ambulance drew closer, renewing the ember of hope in the couple, who were already strung tight with worry.
The doorbell was answered by a maid who showed the two paramedics a male and female upstairs, where the couple with their child was, heavy sound of footsteps echoed on the staircase leading to the rooms upstairs.
Not waiting for the door to be knocked, Sheng Yu flew to the door, swinging it open to admit the guests that she was expectantly waiting for, a man and woman in navy blue jump suit and a lime green vest walked up to the door followed closely behind by an older woman in a knee length short sleeved black gown with a white ap.r.o.n tied to her waist, her hair streaked with grey was held in a bun.
"Good evening."
The paramedics greeted the woman by the door, who looked very disconcerted. Her brows was knitted by frown lines.
"Yu! What are you standing there for? Let them in for goodness sake!"
Sheng Jinzhe couldn"t understand why his wife was behaving in such as strange manner, before the paramedics came she was putting up so much complaint and now that they were at outside their son"s room she was now blocking their way?
"Mrs Yu?"
"Ha! Please come in."
The female paramedic spoke in a gentle voice to the woman at the door, who had a robe of grey on, her hair looked very disheveled, probably from running her hands through them on numerous occasions. The tone seemed to work like magic, as the woman stepped aside for the two to come in and see their son. A small stretcher with a wheel with locks was carried in by the male paramedics while the female paramedic held in her hand a red bag with emergency supplies inside.
They both walked to where the baby was and one of them began checking for pulse by unb.u.t.toning the pajamas to feel for the arm of the baby, it was very faint but there was one on the arm of the child. The paramedic took the baby from the crib and placed him on the stretcher with an oxygen mask attached to his face from an oxygen source.
"What happened to my baby?"
"We can"t with all certainty tell you how your son is doing, but he needs to be seen by a doctor right now."
"Yu, get Liena from her room, we are going with them to the hospital!"
Sheng Yu ran out to wake her daughter who was asleep in bed, the little girl struggled not to have her sleep disturbed, as she kept moving from her mother"s hold.
"Liena! I don"t have time for this! Liena!"
She kept nudging her daughter by the leg to wake up, but she continued to sleep. Sheng Yu picked her daughter from the bed, tossing her across the shoulders, in just her pink pajamas with no footwear, the two left the room, by then the paramedics were already downstairs about to put the strapped baby on the stretcher into the back of the ambulance.
"Butler Buo call my mother and tell her we are heading to ShuPei medical!"
Sheng Jinzhe shouted the orders to the butler who had served the family for close to two decades.
"Yes Vice President Sheng, I would let Madam Sheng know that you have taken young master Xi to ShuPei medical."
Sheng Jinzhe had called his mother"s phone, which kept ringing with no one to answer it. Which was why he was left with no other choice but to let the butler make the call on his behalf.
Sheng Yu with her daughter in hand, ran after her husband and paramedic in a yellow flannel flip flop.
When everyone had gotten into the back of the ambulance, the driver sped out of the home of the Shengs towards ShuPei medical.
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"We have a new patient!"
The paramedics wheeled the child straight into the emergency room that was almost filled to the brim with other patients, there was hardly any bed left in the huge room filled with doctors nurses, visitors and health care professionals from other disciplines. With the help of a nurse in blue uniform, the baby was unstrapped form the stretcher with the oxygen attached to a bed at the end of the room, he was stripped of his pajamas leaving only his diapers after the blue hospital curtain was drawn to provide them with privacy.
"What are the vitals?"
The paramedic pulled out a dark electronic pad which where he recorded the vital sign of the baby.
"A little unstable. Let me take a look at the baby."
A young male doctor in white coat pulled the stethoscope that was draped across his neck, attaching one end that had an earpiece to his ears and the other end with the a metallic rounded smooth surface to the skin of the baby, checking the chest, back and stomach of the child.
"I"m Doctor Lai. Is the baby still receiving breast milk? When was he last fed?"
Looking a bit dazed, Sheng Yu told the doctor when she last fed her child.
"I gave him breast milk at around after nine, he was okay when I was feeding him, I don"t know what happened to him after that! Is he sick?! Is it an infection? Doctor what is happening to my baby?!"
"Before we discuss any further, can you give me your names?"
The doctor sent a questioning look at the couple, while the paramedics stood to the side.
"Sheng Jinzhe, I am Xiaobo"s father."
"That"s my son, I"m Sheng Yu, his mother and this is our daughter Liena."
"h.e.l.lo Liena."
The doctor warmly greeted the little girl, who was now wide awake and was looking around, as though asking where she was, when she heard him call her name, she gave him a toothy smile.
"Mr Sheng, Mrs Sheng we need to draw blood from your son to find out what may be causing him to be sick. I want to be sure that the both of you are okay with taking blood from your son."
"You can go ahead and take my son"s blood. I want to see what the lab results would show up."
"Jinzhe, wouldn"t it hurt our baby? Doctor is there no other way but to draw his blood?"
"Mrs Sheng, we can opt to have his urine taken, but I don"t know since when he last peed in his diaper and moreover it would compromise the result that we obtain, the best option is to get a sample of his blood and we can go from there."
Sheng Jinzhe was already angry at the way his wife was acting with their son, so what if it hurt to have his blood taken? Wan"t it better to endure a momentary pain to know what may be wrong with his body?
"Doctor please go ahead, okay!"
The doctor looked at the couple, sensing the tension that was building up between them, he knew that when it came to a child being sick that was one of the times married couples are usually at their worst, probably due to stress and emotions running high from various reasons.
"I just need you to sign the consent form to have lab work done and the nurse would have it sent to the medical lab for a.n.a.lysis."
The doctor then left the couple to get the supplies to get the blood work of his patient. Not too long after he returned with a set of syringes, two vials, forms and stretchy red band. The couple filled the white form that the doctor handed them with the nurse serving as a witness to the signed consent form, before proceeding with tying the red strap to the right arm of the child, since the left arm had its finger attached to a probe that was connected to a vital sign monitor. The crimson fluid flowed into the syringe, soon after it was transferred into each vial with a special chemical to prevent the blood from clotting.
"All we have to do is to hear back from the lab."
He pa.s.sed the vials to the nurse, who left for the medical lab on the first floor of the hospital.