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24 Hour nurse-led helpline 0800 028 18 28

The following is the complete letter, I have received from a mum of a young boy who contracted meningitis, but who pulled through and is now a very sporty, and active person.  I have written exactly from this letter.

"This is a very hard story to write even though it does have a happy ending.  The emotions I feel about this subject were put away, forgotten. Now they are being raised so I can tell you.

Harry started to be sick and feel unwell on the evening of Sunday 16th March 2003. (Harry was four) He had been at a party fell off a trampoline and had a bruise on the top of his foot about the size of a fifty pence piece.  He had a temperature and kept being sick.  We called the emergency doctor and he came to our house he did ask about the bruise and we explained how Harry got it.  The doctor prescribed Calpol.  Harry was unwell all night shouting out in his sleep crying and moaning.

In the morning I phoned my friend to say Harry was unwell and I wouldn't be able to take her daughter to school as I normally did.  She told me Holly had been ill over the weekend and they had taken her to NHS DIRECT and she had a mild rash on her tummy and she was fine. I looked at Harry and he had a mild rash on his tummy.

I made an appointment at the doctors for 3 o'clock that day.  Harry was sick on and off all day that day.  He had a temperature and couldn't eat anything, he kept saying "I need a bandage on my head" and he was very agitated.  He didn't have the strength to walk and had to be carried to the toilet, he was so weak.

You may be thinking why not take him to the doctors that morning and demand an appointment, but my mind was on other things.  My Brother and his partner were burying a 20 week old baby that day and all I could think of was them.  Sometimes I think, well the spots didn't appear until the afternoon so maybe I would have been sent home with just calpol who knows?

The time came to take Harry to the doctors, we raced to the doctors and I carried him in he was sick in the doctor's reception. We were taken to a side room and the doctor came in and examined Harry.  Immediately he gave Harry the penicillin injection this is the fastest and the most effective treatment for suspected Meningitis. ( this injection probably saved his life and prevented all those horrible side affects. My fabulous Doctor Gunn, he didn't tell me what he thought what it was if he did I don't remember it was like a silent it's serious between us.  He told us to drive straight to the hospital no time for an ambulance and go straight to the children's ward. My husband was waiting in the car for us with our other two year old son Leo.

We drove as fast as we could to the hospital and I raced in with Harry.  The nurses started to examine him they said his temperature was very high.  I can't remember what, but whatever very high is.  The nurses asked questions how much he weighed and other stupid questions. What does it matter I wanted to scream! When I am scared though I can't seem to speak.

Writing this is making me feel really upset, it was so horrible not being able to help my baby. Harry was treated in the emergency room, needles everywhere in his hands and arms.  He was drifting in and out of conciousness I was frozen in shock ,breathing really heavily.  The doctor said "Talk to him, talk to Harry" "Keep your eyes opened Harry" I said "Keep your eyes open." I literally held Harry's eyes open, I was thinking if they don't close he won't die.  I was stroking his head praying to God.  "He has Mengecoccol Septicaemia (bacterial meningitis)" "No no" I said I looked up and my husband was stood in the doorway with Leo. I said "Get Leo out of here. My protective instincts took over to get him out of the room.

My husband joined us so we could be with Harry. Everyone was rushing round and I could see fear in the nurse's eyes but the doctor was so wonderful, calm and professional. The treatments stopped and the doctor just kept saying "you got here just in time", over and over.

Harry was then put in a High Dependency Room on his own with monitors for his heart and blood pressure. He was given medicine every half an hour all through the night and I just lay on his bed with him until the morning and my husband was in a bed on the floor. Harry spent  three night in hospital.

Richard, Leo and I all had to have antibiotics after being questioned to ask who had been in contact with Harry within the last 24 hours, thankfully it was only us who had to take them.  The spots faded and the next day they tried to do a lumbar puncture to try and confirm Mengecoccol Septicaemia. This is when they put a needle in the bottom of your spine and take fluid for testing but it is very difficult and traumatic and they couldn't do it.  My husband went with him for this procedure and he came back in tears.  Harry's quick recovery the doctors said was because he was a healthy child, strong with a good diet.  

Harry left hospital and had to rest at home for two weeks, everyday a nurse came and gave him intravenous antibiotics.  Harry had had a lucky escape, everyone told us so.  I didn't want Harry to have a lucky escape, the fact that he had contracted Meningitis at all must have meant I was a bad mother, a mother who didn't see the signs I should have taken action quicker.

I rang up the Meningitis Trust and they sent me all the information I wanted to know about what happens when you contract Meningitis. I read all the statistics and cried my eyes out, it broke my heart. I put it in a drawer kept it for years and never read it again.  I just wanted to forget, be thankful and I am.

You have to inform the school when a child has meningitis and I thought the mums at school wouldn't want their children to be friends with Harry, silly I know but that didn't happen.   

So 1 in 10 children/adults die or have behavioural problems, memory problems, hearing loss, have amputations, blindness, epilepsy. But 1 in 10 survive without any of these symptoms at all, thankfully that is Harry.

I went to see Dr Gunn and he said thankfully giving that injection, usually only happens once in a doctors career.

Harry is a happy healthy 10 year old boy who was academic enough to pass for Hulme Grammar school for boys.  He swims, plays tennis, and is a brown and white belt at jujitsu and of course watches too much television.

The above letter is to show everyone that not all cases end in losing a loved one, the meningitis trust needs vital funds to continue it's very valuable work indeed.

Please sponsor me now! and see if we can increase the survivability rate, from 1 in 10. and also help other patients and their families.

24 hour nurse-led helpline 0800 028 18 28 

www.meningitis-trust.org

Many thanks for your support.