This tale continues from last week’s…
It’s bad enough still having your parents as your next of kin when you’re my age, but how will I explain my dreadful situation when they arrive at my hospital bed?
I can’t eat or move much yet and it would be lonely in this isolation room if it weren’t for the constant stream of medical experts coming to peer and probe. Beside me is the incubator containing my tiny identical twin, still attached by the faux umbilical cord that formed out of goodness knows which bits of my insides. Apparently he was well tangled up in my viscera, hence the complicated and dangerous surgery, which I may or may not survive.
At least I am not responsible for him now. My parents, his parents are his official guardians, good luck with that Bro. I was an only child, a surprise, an afterthought, not a good surprise as I overheard mother say to aunty and another time telling a friend they came to parenthood ‘too late in the day’.
Anyway, they need to come into the hospital for a medical, moral and legal discussion about what should happen to Little Bro. Oh no, here they are, what am I going to say, I thought my team would be with them.
‘Oh my God what happened, not that wretched motorbike of yours?’
‘No Mother, I have never had an accident and it’s a moped not a motorbike.’
‘That’s a relief, so what did happen?’
‘There is no easy way to say this. I had a parasitic conjoined twin inside me for years, well all of my life and now he’s in that incubator.’
I pressed the emergency button, my father had fainted when he looked in the Perspex case. Mother had rushed out of the room screaming, causing chaos in the corridor, no doubt staff and visitors alike wondering what was going on. There was even more chaos in my room with the crash team thinking I was the emergency. It must have been in all the confusion that a visitor popped his head round the door and took a few snaps on his phone. That’s how we ended up a social media sensation and headlines on the evening news.
Unfortunately they got the story completely wrong.
BABY USED AS LIVING DONOR TO CURE TERMINALLY ILL MILLIONAIRE
The only positive was that they did not have my name and they could not know Baby Bro’s name, because he had not been given one. That was up to my parents, but they wanted nothing to do with him, especially when it was broached to them at an urgent meeting with the hospital lawyers that the facts should be given to the public to stop the awful speculation that was ruining the hospital’s reputation.
The family court decided they would not be fit parents and it was recommended I should be Bro’s guardian as I was his next of kin.
Baby Bro was now three days old, or the same age as me, opinion was divided. We were still joined, but doctors were worried he was gaining strength and weight, while I was becoming weaker. As Bro could not read or write only I could sign the consent form for the uncertain medical procedure to separate us.
I forced myself to look at him. After all, there was a strong possibility he would not survive. I don’t much like babies anyway, though I always presumed if I had one of my own I might like it. Baby Bro did not look like a baby, he looked just like me only tiny. I was repelled. If he lived, no one knew what would happen, would he grow, did he have a mind? As I grappled with these thoughts he smiled at me. I felt sick, could he read my mind, our mind?
He lived. I was put in a recovery room by myself, a nurse reassured me I could go to the special care unit and see him soon.
Baby Bro was made a ward of court as I was considered not fit to care for him yet. In fact no one was sure how his care should be handled, it was a complex case that must go to the high court. Various groups started gathering outside the hospital, none of them quite sure what they were protesting about.
I was soon fit to leave hospital. I had never felt so well physically, after all, for the first time in my life I was no longer supporting another body. I had been subject to a barrage of tests, my DNA samples given, now I wanted to get on with my life. I was smuggled out of the hospital and returned to my flat, not completely free, I was warned not to leave the local area and advised to keep a low profile, someone had leaked my name.
So here I am, walking down the street, the late afternoon sun behind me, feeling like a normal person. I hope Baby Bro is in good hands, the experts know what they are doing… well there’s nothing I can do until, until what I’m not sure.
Have you ever had that experience when the sun is low in the sky and you think someone is behind you, but it is just the long shadow of a person yards behind. A shadow caught up with me and was beside my shadow on the pavement, identical to my shadow. I turned to look. There was nobody beside me or behind me. I quickened my pace, the shadow kept level alongside my shadow.
Times and Tides of a Beachwriter 