In February 2010 meningitis and septicaemia left our 14 month old Ella in a coma and fighting for her life.
Just hours earlier she was running around at toddler group. Ella has battled back to full health thanks to expert care at both Frenchay and Bristol Children’s Hospital.
These events prompted me to take action to help beat the disease. We have subsequently raised thousands of pounds to aid research and I became a trustee for MeningitisNow.
We will be forever indebted to the vigilance of our nanny Rachel Brown. She had become concerned when Ella became clingy and was running a temperature after toddler group. Calpol wasn’t helping to lower her high temperature so she took Ella to the doctors when a pinprick rash began to appear. He diagnosed her illness as an ear infection.
I had come home from the office and saw how off colour Ella was as Rachel walked back in from the doctors. Just then Ella began to fit and we rushed her to Frenchay’s A&E department with my wife, who was just pulling into the driveway from a day in the London office.
They stripped Ella down and we could see the pin pricks covering her body. Having been brought up in Stroud during the 80s I spent my childhood with the ‘tumbler test’ being applied when any of us came out in a rash .... and I feared right then then that she had meningitis ... my mother's worst nightmare a generation on.
It all happened so quickly that we couldn’t really take the whole situation in. The adrenaline kicked in and it didn’t really hit us just how ill she was until much later.
Ella was transferred by ambulance to Bristol Children’s Hospital and, under the expert care of Professor Andrew Wolf in the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit, she was put into an induced coma. She was diagnosed with meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia, caused by the group B strain of the disease.
It hit us just how ill she was when we walked through the double doors into intensive care. The vision that greeted us was truly gut-wrenching and I don’t think anything can ever prepare a parent for seeing their child lifeless, helpless and wired up to what felt like every machine in the hospital.
Thankfully over the following days she stabilised and was gradually taken off levels of life support as each vital organ recovered. After four days she was out of the woods and doctors were confident she would be ok.
Ella completed her course of antibiotics and was soon back at home, chasing her older brother Callum without a care in the world. She is now a bright and healthy child and has made a full recovery after the traumatic ordeal.
Meningitis and septicaemia can kill within hours. Early diagnosis can be difficult.
If you have had advice and are still concerned, trust your instincts, get medical help again.
Join us in saving lives and rebuilding futures at www.meningitisnow.org
