INTERVIEW:When Nicky Harris kissed her daughter Chloe goodbye at Dublin airport last summer, she had no idea that this holiday trip to visit her grandmother in Canada would end in tragedy and leave Chloe and her whole family facing challenges they could never have imagined, writes Ann Marie Hourinhane.
LAST SUMMER Nicky Harris put her youngest daughter, Chloe, on a plane to Vancouver. Nicky and her husband work in the fashion business and August is their busiest month. "I didn't want a 14-year-old down in Dundrum Town Centre for the summer," says Nicky. Nicky's two sisters and her mother, Jill, lived in Canada, and Chloe had cousins there. Chloe got cold feet at the last minute - "I was pushing her through Dublin airport" - but once she'd arrived, Chloe had a wonderful time at summer camp with her cousin. She was looking forward to returning to Vancouver to see her grandmother.
And then the phone call came, on the night of August 18th, Nicky's birthday. There had been a car accident on the Stanley Bridge in Vancouver. Nicky's mother, Jill, had been killed and Chloe very badly injured. Nicky and her husband, Edward, who are separated but still good friends and very united about their children, made the 17-hour journey to Vancouver.
"All I wanted was her to be alive when I got there. I'd had a cot death and I know from then that you've got nowhere to go. I set my sights very low. I pitched it very low."
Nevertheless, while waiting at Heathrow, Nicky bought Chloe presents - some Mac make-up and a teddy bear.
"When we got to the hospital there was a social worker waiting for us and she said we should be prepared, because there were a lot of tubes and so on, but I didn't give a toss about that. I just wanted to get in. I just saw she was alive. That's all we wanted. I didn't make any deals with God. I just said: 'I cannot lose another child.'"
Chloe had what is called a closed head injury. When hit or shaken the brain rotates within the skull, leading to what is called diffuse axonal injury - damage all over the brain. The Glasgow Coma Scale of severe brain injury runs from three to eight. When she was admitted to the British Columbia Children's Hospital, Chloe was assessed at seven. Chloe's parents were now in a nightmare world of medical technology, scans and screenings.
"Edward was really into that, but I made a mental note not to be, just to hear the positive stuff. I said to myself: 'I'll be driven by her. I'll focus on her. I'll watch her.'"
Chloe was prayed for by three rabbis, the Archbishop of Canterbury (through a friend of her sister, Jessica), the worshippers at a mosque, an enclosed order of Carmelite nuns, and many other people.
"I'm not a religious person at all, and the irony of that was not lost on me," says Nicky. "But it was a very, very good feeling, that people were praying. Recently I was in the Shelbourne and this woman came up to me and said: 'You don't know me, but I prayed for your daughter.'"
Then, Chloe's two sisters, Jessica and Sophie, flew out to Canada. Jessica, who is a professional musician, spent three days and three nights singing Chloe every song she knew. The only time Chloe reacted was when her father played with her feet, in a game from Chloe's early childhood. "The doctors couldn't tell me if Chloe would ever talk again, they couldn't tell me if she would ever see again."
In a way, Chloe coming out of the coma was even more distressing than watching her unconscious. "It's not like on TV," says Nicky. "Nothing could prepare you for it." There were the twitching limbs, the agitation and the eyes that rolled in their sockets. "Eventually the eyes settled, but Chloe still couldn't see. Sophie was just distraught. It was hard for us cope with her sisters as well.
"For six days and six nights we watched her, eyes wide open and thrashing around, tube-fed and wearing nappies. It seemed to be never-ending. They said, this can go on for weeks."
About the Vancouver Children's Hospital, Nicky cannot speak too highly. It is a centre of excellence, serving the territory of British Columbia, and a population of 4½ million. There were counsellors and social workers and all the medical support staff on site. Even while Chloe was still in her coma there was a music therapist who used to come to visit her. Nicky played Snow Patrol, one of Chloe's favourite bands. "Although later we discovered that Chloe needed quiet."
The hospital coped with every detail. "Chloe had braces and she got horrendous thrush in her mouth. I knew the braces had to go, so two young women dentists came up. They said they were going to get their tools and of course I thought I wouldn't see them again for weeks. But they were back in 10 minutes and had the braces out in two. Mouth management, you've no idea, it's a whole thing in itself."
In many ways, for Nicky, it was like having a baby all over again.
"There are huge similarities. You're in unfamiliar territory, looking for cues and signs. I was focusing on her personality and using that. I really believe I got her out the nappies."
By the second week Chloe had started whispering, and when Nicky asked her what she wanted she managed to rasp "Frappuccino." It had always been her favourite. But the anxiety was overwhelming. "I remember thinking, 'I'll never be happy again. I'll never have a coffee and do the crossword.' I was so absorbed in Chloe that a baby died in the next bed and I didn't even notice. One day I was standing by Chloe's bed and her lungs collapsed. I thought: 'This is it, I'm going to have a heart attack.'"
Chloe began to ask for her grandmother, and Nicky had to tell her that Jill was in heaven. She had to tell her every day, because Chloe could not remember. Her short-term memory is still poor.
After three weeks of acute care Chloe was moved - by ambulance, a very distressing journey - to another hospital, Sunny Hill. It is an old TB hospital. "But it didn't smell like a hospital. The staff didn't wear uniforms. There was a swimming pool and a restaurant, and Chloe thought that she was on holiday in Kelly's Hotel in Rosslare. She didn't know she was in Canada. Once when she was asked which country she was in, she rather brilliantly replied 'Virtual Hawaii?'. The doctors put a big poster at the end of her bed which said: 'My name is Chloe Harris. I am from Dublin.' Somehow they got hold of pictures of the Spire in O'Connell Street, and of a 46A bus, of all things." Remarkably, Chloe could still read, and over a weekend, she learned how to walk again.
After about three months, the time came for Chloe and her parents to come home. There is only one place in Ireland for all brain-injured children, the National Rehabilitation Hospital (NRH) on Rochestown Avenue in Dún Laoghaire, which also treats adults. It has six paediatric beds, for children suffering all types of injury, and two beds for children who are day patients.
"There's a massive waiting list. A lot of people don't realise that there are kids there. Most parents want their children at home. I would have taken Chloe home but you need so much back-up: occupational therapists, speech therapists, physios, neuropsychologists. We don't do rehabilitation in the community here."
Chloe was put in a six-bed ward. "There is no place for a parent to stay beside your child which is where you need to be. There is a bungalow for parents, but that may as well be on Mars."
For the frontline staff at the NRH, Nicky has nothing but praise. "They're terrific and that leads me to believe that the management is very good. But they're working off an old model."
A new hospital is planned for the site, and building is expected to start in 12 months time. Under this plan the children's beds will be increased to 20, and the number of places in the NRH's school will quadruple to 24. Children and teenagers will have a separate unit.
Nicky thinks that children and teenagers need a building of their own, so you don't have to walk past the male ward on their way in and out of the children's ward. At the moment, privacy is an issue, she says. The teenagers need much better facilities. Mainly because of the physical environment, there isn't a relaxed atmosphere like they found at Sunny Hill.
Now Chloe is taken to NRH every day, but she wants to do normal things.
"Her whole aim in life was to go back to school." Her old school, Stratford College in Rathgar, Dublin - "they've been absolutely wonderful" - will take her back this autumn. She has developed a tremor in her right arm, and sometimes, in group situations, can look very puzzled. She was upset over Christmas, saying: 'My friends have all forgotten me. I just want my old life back.'" Eventually, Nicky took Chloe up to Dundrum Town Centre to meet her old gang. "I'd hover," says Nicky, "or one of her sisters would hover. It's a work in progress."
Nicky Harris wears iridescent eyeliner and is not really the type to go on sponsored walks. On her last sponsored walk, which she undertook shortly after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, she was plucking her eyebrows while the others took a break. She doesn't like walking, or trekking, or camping or any of that stuff. "I'm a five-star person," she says.
But she has decided to go on a sponsored walk for the NRH, covering 150km over five days in Brazil, even though she's not a hiker . "I'm paying my own fare to Brazil," says Nicky. "I wouldn't ask anyone to pay my way. All the money raised will go to the hospital."
She wants to raise money to employ a music therapist for the children, or pay for the therapist's equipment, or for a computer for the teenagers, or even for a box of books on brain damage, like the one they had in the hospital in Vancouver, for parents to read. That's why she's going on the sponsored walk, which starts at the end of May.
"For me it's cathartic," she says. "It's definitely a way for me to work through my grief. I lost the child I sent away, the child I pushed through the doors at Dublin Airport. She's terrific, she's great, but she's different."
There is a fundraising Jazz Night on Thursday, April 24th in Joy's nightclub, Baggot St, Dublin from 8pm. You can make a donation towards Nicky's five-day walk at www.321-connect.com/nickyharris or at 45 Central Chambers, Dame Court, Dublin 2