A trainee nurse left notes at the hospital bedside of a two-year-old battling a rare form of cancer to help her colleagues comfort him with words of Welsh. Little Morgan Ridler, from Swansea, was awaiting life-threatening surgery at Birmingham Children's Hospital to remove a tumour in his abdomen when the student medic overheard his mum Natalie speaking to him in his native language.
The woman then wrote a series of reassuring phrases in Welsh - things like 'You're okay' and 'You're safe', written phonetically to aid pronunciation - so that whoever was on the ward could help him feel less scared when his family weren't around. It wasn't until a year later, when relatives requested copies of Morgan's medical notes, that the kind act was finally discovered.
"I was skimming through the notes and and one stood out from the rest because of the handwriting," said mum Natalie, 32. "That’s when I found she had put in this entry of some Welsh phrases to comfort Morgan when he was distressed.
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"She was a student nurse on the intensive care unit and she heard me speak Welsh to him when he was upset and took it upon herself to do this for him. We were so far from home and in a completely different country -they went above and beyond for my son and that means the world to me."
According to The Times, Morgan was offered only a 10 per cent chance of surviving his operation last December. His mum said he'd been sent to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for surgery because staff there "were the only ones willing to take on" a procedure so fraught with danger.
And Natalie added that she eventually got to speak to the nurse that had gone the extra mile to help Morgan. "She was from Cardiff but had lived in Birmingham for a while and was attending the university as a student nurse," she said.
"I was able to thank her and have nominated her for a student nursing award." Natalie added that the nurse also told her she had recently graduated and is due to start properly in intensive care next week.
Meanwhile, Morgan - who was diagnosed with adrenocortical carcinoma - made it through the surgery, only for the cancer to spread to his lungs. He's since undergone eight rounds of chemotherapy and lung surgery in Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.
He is now waiting for a small operation to remove the treatment line into his chest. "After that he can ring his bell to say he is all clear," said Natalie.
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