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Meningitis in your words

Zane Steven Gibson's story

  • Location: England
  • Categories: Meningococcal
  • Age: Baby 0-1
  • Outcome: Bereavement
Zane Steven Gibson
Back to Meningitis in your words

It was the morning of March 3, 2003. I awoke around 10am to find Zane and his daddy still sleeping. I found it odd so I woke his daddy to see if Zane had eaten and he had not eaten since 2am, which is odd for a six week old. 

I made a bottle and tried to feed him. He wouldn't eat and that's when I noticed his saliva was stringy and very sticky, and that his diaper wasn't that wet. He just lay there staring at the ceiling, not really moving or even making a noise, so I called the doctor. 

I was getting him dressed and noticed little purple spots on his belly. We rushed him to the doctors, and when in the office they couldn't get a temperature. At that point, without notice, the doctor picked him up and ran out of the room yelling "call ER". We knew nothing - we just ran behind the doctor yelling "what's going on?" The doctor said he had stopped breathing. 

"At that point was when our lives were turned upside down.. She came out and asked if he had any symptoms of being sick until today and I said no. That's when they said they thought it was meningitis."

Once in the ER all the doctors and nurses were hovered around him, one giving him oxygen, another giving him medication through IVs, another trying to get his temperature back up with heat pads, another charting everything. One of the nurses came and said you have to wait out here and I'll be out to tell you what's going on.

At that point was when our lives were turned upside down.. She came out and asked if he had any symptoms of being sick until today and I said no. That's when they said they thought it was meningitis. I had never heard of it till that day. They told us he would have to be taken to a bigger hospital. 

We went back to see him and they wouldn't let us in. The doctor came out and told us it was meningitis and that he wouldn't make it through the night. We went back to see him and it looked like he had been beaten - he had purple spots from head to toe, tubes coming out of everywhere. All I wanted to do was hold him and tell him I was there and that it would be ok. 

Once I started to walk into the room one of the machines beeped, his heart had stopped and we were pushed back out of the room.. We waited for what seemed hours to hear anything but it was only about 30 to 40 minutes when the doctor came back in and said our precious little boy had passed. I fell to the floor screaming - within less then six hours the meningitis had taken over his little body and he couldn't fight anymore. 

I had never heard of this disease till that day, and Zane didn't have any of the symptoms of it till it was too late. I had two doctors look at me like I didn't know what I was talking about when I said he didn't show any signs of being sick. Not all children or adults have the symptoms they tell you about till it's too late.

Zane will be missed forever but never forgotten.

Kim Sheppard
October 2009