My heart sank as I looked at my little boy who was just so poorly and I couldn’t do a thing to help him. We arrived at the hospital, Billy held him in his arms and we were rushed straight to Resus! Where we met by my mum, 3 Doctors and multiple nurses. Straight away a cannula was put in, he didn’t even flinch and I could see the worry on everyone’s faces.
Luckily the consultant on duty (Dr Rahman) made the decision to give Georgie a high strength of antibiotics until they could find out exactly what was happening. I found out later that he was almost 100% sure he knew straight away what it was but couldn’t tell us at the time.
The next 2 days are all a blur, Georgie had been transferred to Intensive Care where he remained unconscious, not because of any medicine purely because his body was shutting down. He was due to have a lumbar puncture but they had to give him a blood transfusion first because the sepsis was destroying his blood.
On the Sunday morning we were sat down by a senior consultant who told us what no parent wanted to hear.... Georgie was not reacting to the treatment and there was nothing more they could give him, it was up to him to fight it, and if there was no improvement within 24 hours he wasn’t going to make it. Billy stood up, walked out as he just couldn’t take in what we had just been told. I just sat there, I didn’t know what to say or feel. From that moment all we could do is just pray for this little boy to get better.
His results from the lumbar puncture came back which diagnosed him with meningococcal septicaemia, His first count of infection was 346!! A normal well person is between 5-10.
He was unconscious for 4 1/2 days and we had the best news! We found out that his infection count had come down to 270 which is extremely high but it meant the treatment was starting to work.
Over the next day or so Georgie started to wake up, we had no idea what to expect. It was heartbreaking, our lively, smiley little boy had lost all emotion and wasn’t able to do any of the things he could before he fell poorly, he couldn’t recognise his own parents.
But by day seven! Georgie was a true fighter and his infection counter was right down and he started to improve dramatically. Up to this point he couldn’t use his arms, sit up, babble or smile. These all started to slowly come back.
We were in the hospital for a total of 11 days and finally we were allowed home. I didn’t want to leave, I felt so much safer being there. I did not leave those 4 walls in that time which is probably the reason I have to write this for people to read because at the time I was just numb and I was very lucky to have my husband who was by far the stronger one out of us. We had so much support from family and friends it was incredible.
Six months on I’m telling you all our story because Georgie was lucky to come out the other-side. He has no physical after affects but he is under several consultants as they are concerned about a few things but nothing we won’t be able to cope with.