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On Tuesday 7th September 2010, I was out for dinner at Strada with work colleagues, enjoying life, with not a care in the world, enjoying a big glass of wine. Within 5 hours of my enjoyable night ending, my cousin's 8 month old bubba Rocco had been diagnosed with Meningitis septicaemia and was fighting for his life.

For those of you who do not know anything about Meningitis, it is an inflammation of the meninges, the linings that surround and protect the brain. It can be caused by many different organisms including bacteria, viruses and fungi. Septicaemia (blood poisoning) is caused when bacteria enter the bloodstream and multiply uncontrollably. Meningococcal bacteria can cause both meningitis and septicaemia. Together these are known as meningococcal disease. Brain damage, epilepsy, hearing and sight impairment and scaring can result from meningitis.

Rocco was transferred from Worthing Hospital to the London Evelina's children hospital in the early hours of 8th september in a childrens intensive care ambulance, and on arrival was taken straight to intensive care where he was put on a life support machine and heavily sedated. Rocco had deteriorated rapidly during the 1 hour journey, and only one person could travel in the ambulance. Tom was told to hurry Rocco's mum up in getting to the hospital, as they were to expect the worst.

They were told at 5am that there was little if any chance of survival and if Rocco did survive, he would need to have his legs amputated as they had both turned black from the blood poisoning.

From 8am Rocco seemed to turn a corner and started responding to the antibiotics and slowly his rash began to fade.The doctors and nurses labelled him the miracle baby and were truly AMAZING. The nurses did 12 hour shifts and then handovers, and cared for Rocco beyond anyones belief. They made a diary for Rocco, explaining what was wrong with him and added to it daily. When he is old enough to understand what happened to him, he can look back at the diary, with all the pictures of him to see how meningitis affected him.

Over the next few days, his legs were turning back to their normalpeachey colour, and the thought of amputation was  a distant memory.

Rocco was faced with one setback 4 days in, pneumonia in one of his lungs, which meant the ventilator they'd taken out had to be put back in.

After 8 days in intensive care, Rocco was allowed to be transferred back to worthing hospital and a normal ward, and within a few more days he was home.

He has made an excellent recovery, but has been left with some scaring and has gone from being a little bruiser to just skin and bone. The doctors are a little worried about his speech going forward but he'll be back to eating shreddies, banana and toast just for breakfast in not time!

A thank you card to the ICU at Evelina's children hospital is no where near enough to thank the hospital and their staff for saving baby Rocco's life. By doing the Brooks 10k, we can rasie money for them and decide how we want to spend it. So we can buy wonderful things like life saving equipment, books, bubble machines, baby mobiles, to make sure other children have the best chance possible of surviving.

For those who want to support us, there are approx 10 of my family and family friends doing the 10k on the 21 November, along Brigthon sea front. We are going in fancy dress, so doctors, nurses, ladybirds or anything else which  resembles the meningitis spotty rash.

Rocco was lucky, but not everyone is, so please dig deep and donate to help the Evelina's hospital care for other sick children just like they did for baby Rocco!

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