Preparing To Say Goodbye

My name is Erika, and I am about to go into Stasis. This is my life story, written by my mother, Roselyn.

3^rd October 2461 “Ever since I found out I was pregnant my life has been flipped upside down. The pregnancy was fantastic in itself, but the threat of a child caused my husband to divorce and abandon me. Despite him leaving me and taking half of our assets, I was left the house and all of my money was still mine, thank goodness for prenups. After my daughter Erika was born, life got even harder.

Now, her condition has gotten so bad, she only has three weeks to live, unless I sign for her to enter a state of stasis until the vital research, which will hopefully find a treatment, or even god willing, a cure, can be carried out.

She was diagnosed with Jurgrens Disease at five years old, after spending her whole life in the NICU, despite being born almost two and a half weeks late, at a healthy new-born weight of six pounds and seven ounces, with no deformities, abnormalities or organ problems. When she was first born, she had struggled to begin breathing on her own, she did not cry or breathe for close to three minutes, I had almost given up and thought I had delivered a stillborn child, she was almost given up on by the doctors and midwives too, who were rubbing her back, tipping her upside-down and using some sort of device in her nose and mouth, when she finally gurgled a shallow and laboured breath. My first contact with her was through an incubator, she was covered in tubes and her skin was almost see-through. With some time and treatment, at two and a half years old, she could breathe by herself, she still could not be held but I could hold her hand through the incubator walls, she could just stay in her oxygenated incubator. Within a further one and a half years, she could breathe well enough by herself that she did not have to stay in her incubator, only having an oxygen nasal cannula, and I could finally, properly cuddle and hold my beautiful little girl, my miracle daughter. Throughout the entire treatment, the neonatal paediatricians completed several dozen tests on my little girl to try to work out what was wrong with her, poking, prodding and drawing more blood than I thought could be in her little body.

The inability to breath independently until almost three years in age, the light purple tint to her practically sheer skin and yellow tint to her eyes, her incredibly slow and restricted movements and delayed reflexes perplexed the specialists, until finally her blood tests revealed that her white blood cell count was zero. She is unable to fight of any infection without severe medical intervention, she is completely immunocompromised; I want to be able to protect her but because of her condition I cannot vaccinate her. She is one in only seventy cases of Jurgrens Disease ever recorded. An almost zero percent chance of being diagnosed with the condition.

After a further three years of living, learning and developing slowly in the hospital, at eight years old, I could finally bring my daughter home. Erika’s room was still set up as if I were bringing home a new-born, but I had a good family friend bring me a single bed for her to sleep on. I hired a group of three live in nurses to help me throughout the night, to help me care for my daughter. The nurses were called Gracie, Kirstin and Viktoria.

After a good three years, following my insane cleaning routine if I or my nurses were to ever leave the house, Erika got sick. Within an hour of myself coming home, my daughter began coughing and sneezing, Viktoria called out the specialist doctor to the house, Gracie looked after Erika and Kirstin helped me to clean the house and continued as I took a quick cleansing shower. As the doctor arrived, Viktoria helped him decontaminate himself and brought him through to Erika’s room to begin caring for her. The doctor, Joseph, had cared for my daughter since she was born, now solely working with Erika to protect her. Erika had a cold. Her coughing, sneezing and moaning echoed throughout my house as she got worse and worse over the next day and night.

After another night, Joseph called an ambulance to take Erika to the children’s hospital. She was admitted to the ICU in her own room, with a decontamination section between the doors to the main ward and the doors to my daughters’ room. Only myself, the doctor Joseph, my nurses Gracie, Kirstin and Viktoria and the hospital specialist Dr Janine Saurie were allowed into the room. Before my Erika fell completely out of consciousness, she asked me to write what has happened to her and therefore me, over the past almost decade.

Her oxygen levels slowly declined to where she had to be intubated, a machine breathing for her. After three days of being on life support, a new doctor wanted to talk to me. He could not come into the room due to how poorly my Erika was, so I had to leave her side. He was introduced by Joseph as Dr Eduardo Kingslay, respiratory and rare diseases researcher. He told me of a potential life saving medication that was being researched and created within his lab in Hungary. Due to how poorly Erika was, she was only given three weeks to live. Eduardo was made aware of this before speaking to me and introduced an idea to help keep my little girl alive until the medication was perfected and safe for human use.

Medical stasis was the only way my Erika could survive until the medication was ready, potentially in just two years’ time.  He explained everything that would happen. Erika would be submerged in highly oxygenated liquid, being kept alive through intubation, with a liquid filled with all of the essential vitamins, minerals and other things needed to keep her alive. I did not understand half of what he said but I knew that it would keep her alive. He showed me a video of another child, close to my Erika’s age who also suffered with a rare disease, who was currently in Stasis. The child looked at piece and the wires were less intrusive as those Erika had as she was a baby in the incubator. Eduardo has given me until the weekend, in two days, to think about it. So, I am writing this as my Erika has asked.

I do not need until Saturday to decide, I already have. I am going to sign the papers and put my daughter into medical Statis, I am going to choose her life. Despite the fact that I will not get to hold her for at least two years, I will get my daughter back, and she will be healthier.”

14^th October 2462 “I got a call from Eduardo this morning. He was calling from his lab in Hungary. He had prepared Erika’s chamber and was bringing it to the UK ready for her to begin her Stasis. He would be here tomorrow. Tonight, I will say goodbye to Erika for the next two or so years. He will take her back to Hungary until he has perfected the medication. When he is prepared to administer the medication, he will fly me out to his Lab so I can set up a more cosy and comfortable area for my Erika could wake up in.

These will be the longest years of my life."