JUNE 2007
(Make yourself comfy… this is a long one!)
Well, Callum was still at the coast and I missed him like crazy. Shaun was going to be working the following weekend, but I said that I would go through to the caravan to see Callum because I couldn’t go 2 weeks without seeing him…. Andy and Luke decided to come for the weekend too.
It was late on Friday evening when I got there and it was great to see Callum… although he was more bothered about seeing Luke than me!
We had a good weekend, but I still wasn’t happy with his lingering cough. Everyone tried to re-assure me that he was fine and that his cough was getting better, but I couldn’t settle, there was just something not right that I could not put into words.
I was due to go home on Sunday, and looked forward to a fun filled day before setting off home at tea-time. However, when Callum woke up my unease about his health was worse. Even though he seemed much the same in himself as the day before, his head was quite hot. It wasn’t long before Callum had quite a temperature and he then started being more lethargic and clingy. I gave him some Calpol to bring his temperature down which did help a little. By this point my mind was made up, I would be taking him home with me so that he could see a doctor.
We spent the day in the caravan before heading home. I dropped Andy and Luke at home and then headed home with Callum.
Shaun got quite a surprise when we walked in, he had really missed Callum and thought it was a pleasant surprise getting to see him. I explained that I thought he needed to see the GP and that Shaun would have to take him back to my Mum and Dad at the caravan on Wednesday as we would both be working on Thursday.
Callum was getting hot again so I gave him some more Calpol and pretty soon afterwards he fell asleep on the sofa. I just couldn’t bring myself to put him to bed. I was very uncomfortable about the whole thing; I just didn’t want to let him out of my sight.
Eventually, several hours later, we decided we needed to go to bed and so set about tidying things away, putting the rubbish outside etc. I was in the room with Callum when suddenly he sat up and let out such a terrible scream… it just didn’t sound like him. He then proceeded to be very sick. He was in such a state, really sobbing. Shaun heard what was going on and came running in with a bowl. When Callum finally lifted his head Shaun and I could not believe what we saw…
A strange rash had appeared across Callum’s face. Often, when kids get a rash, you do the whole ‘heart in your mouth’ while you do the ‘glass test’ and then breathe a sigh of relief when the rash fades under the pressure. But this was different. Maybe because we already knew the answer. I calmly asked Shaun to get me a glass, and, sure enough, the rash did not fade. I had always assumed that if that happened we would panic, every parent dreads their child getting meningitis, but we were just so calm. Maybe too calm.
I phoned the NHS Advice Line who said we needed to get Callum seen by a doctor straight away. They booked us in with an Out of Hours GP in Wakefield, a 20 minute drive away. We were offered an ambulance, but I said it would be quicker for us to just drive through rather than waiting for it to arrive… because there were two adults with Callum they agreed provided one of us sat in the back with Callum and that we had a phone with us to call for help should he deteriorate. We have since been told that we should have just phoned 999 as soon as we saw the rash.
When we got to the GP he took one look at Callum’s face and said that he needed to be under the care of a specialist at the hospital and that we should go in the waiting room while he makes some phone calls. Only a couple of minutes later, the GP emerged saying that we should drive straight round to Ward B at Pinderfields hospital where a Consultant was waiting for us…. From that point, the calm turned to the surreal… still not panic, still no outward reaction to the seriousness of it all.
Pinderfields Hospital was only a short drive away from where we saw the GP. When we got there, the staff were great. They did their best to put Callum at ease as they did all the initial checks and stuff. Some ‘emla’’ cream was put on to the backs of his hands to numb them before they put a canula in.
When it came to putting the canula in and taking the blood tests etc. they only wanted one of us in with him. Shaun volunteered and they went into a room across the corridor. It wasn’t long before I could hear Callum screaming and crying…. Probably made worse by the fact that by now it was around 2.30am and the rest of the ward was so quiet.
I went to watch through the window, I couldn’t see Callum for all the people around him. It was breaking my heart to hear him scream so much. I held the tears back as a nurse came out of the room to go get something, she looked and me and said I could go in if I wanted.
I went and sat at the side of Shaun where he and a nurse were trying to hold Callum down on the bed while they got needles in, he was putting up such a fight (suppose it was a good sign really), they had been successful once, but then Callum had pulled it out before they got any blood samples. It was very traumatic for everyone involved. Shaun and I looked at each other and, at that point, we let the fear in… what if we were never suppose to have him. Maybe all those years of failing to get a child were for a reason.
For Callum’s sake we knew we had to put these thoughts out of our heads and concentrate on being strong for him.
Eventually, the canula was in, the blood samples were done, and they could start with the medication. We were settled into a side room and a machine was brought in along with a syringe that looked almost the size of Callum’s arm. The nurse told us that what they were using was the medical equivalent of Domestos; it would kill almost any bugs in it path.
By now it was 4.30am in the morning and the machine would take up to half and hour to pump this medication into his tiny little body. He would have to have it at regular timed intervals for at least five days… which meant him being woken at 4.30am every day to be connected to the machine.
The nurses brought a fold up bed in to the room and we finally managed to get settled for a few hours. Callum slept, but me and Shaun just quietly watched him, briefly chatting about the fears we were feeling when we had looked at each other earlier.
The consultant returned at a more reasonable hour and was lovely with Callum despite him now having a fear of anyone from the medical profession… voluntary co-operation was not an option following the trauma he had gone through. The consultant explained how Callum was showing all the classic text book signs of meningitis and so he was being treated for the disease while the results of the tests came through. The viral test came through quite quickly but the bacterial result took several days. Fortunately the bacterial one was negative (bacterial meningitis is worse than viral). The viral results had been confusing; they said that the levels of what they were looking for were very high, but that they had not quite reached the levels they would normally see in meningitis cases. Considering that they were so high and he showed all the symptoms, the meningitis treatment would continue.
Callum’s wellbeing was up and down. He would be relatively fine for a while, then his temperature would suddenly soar (the hospital staff referred to this as ‘spiking’). He developed a secondary infection in his chest which needed further antibiotics (oral). We explained that Callum often fell quite ill when ever he got a cough. The Consultant listened to our concerns and said she would get his chest x-rayed. Again, we cannot praise them enough – within 2 hours of this promise, he was taken for his x-ray. It came back showing ‘stickiness’ which was probably down to the infection, but other than that there was nothing to worry about. We were glad he had got it done though, we had often been worried about his weak chest.
Given the news about the chest infection, Callum was put on even more medication. This one was an oral antibiotic, but it made him ever so sick. It had a really gritty texture and irritated his stomach terribly. After trying for a day or so, they changed it to a more palatable medicine.
Despite a deepening fear of doctors, nurses, consultants etc. Callum made one friend in the hospital… the hospital teacher. She came in to see him that first morning and we joked how it was the school holidays yet he was having to been seen by the teacher! She asked Callum what he liked to do at home. When we mentioned how he likes to use our laptop, she said that she had a laptop he could use and that she would call back with it soon… she was now Callum’s best friend! He looked forward to his morning visits from the teacher.
We stayed in the hospital with him all week. We were both by his side constantly apart from when one of us had to make a trip home for pyjamas or nip out for our own food etc.
The medications were taking their toll on Callum and he ended up with diarrhoea so bad that his poor bottom was blistered and burnt and we had to put him back into nappies. He would scream when we tried to clean his bottom, he would scream when we had to hold him down while the nurses checked on his canula and gave him medicines etc. It’s hard to cope when you are doing your best to help get your child better and all the while he is shouting for help, begging people to ‘save him’ from his Mummy and Daddy. That’s got to have been one of the hardest things to take.
When my Mum and Dad visited, my Mum left the room visibly upset after Callum was shouting ‘save me Grandma’. The next day we discovered my Mum had been admitted to a ward on the other side of the hospital with suspected Gaul Stones… she had been up all night in pain and had been brought in by ambulance at 4am. I still believe some of her problems were brought on by stress from the day before. We took Callum down in his jammies that night to give her a goodnight kiss… I’m not sure who was reassured most!
As the week went on, Callum slowly started showing signs of improvement. We were so happy when we could finally take him home. We were all physically and emotionally wrecked. An appointment was made to see Callum as an outpatient in a month to make sure that there had been no lasting damage.
In the week that followed I then came down with a virus similar to Callum’s, I suspect he had shared his secondary infection with me. I felt terrible. I even stated to my GP that I wished that they would take me in hospital and sort me out because I felt that bad – but he said that the hospitals were bursting at the seams with higher than normal admission rates and that elderly and children were priority. I suppose if they had taken me in, I would have been moaning saying that I wanted to go home! Poor Callum, he had so much more wrong with him than I had, I can only try to imagine how bad he felt.
Eventually, things settled down. My birthday had passed with barely a mention; but, quite frankly, it was the last thing on our minds this month. We are supposed to be sorting through our belongings and packing everything up as we move house next month… that’s us well and truly behind schedule now.
It wasn’t until I returned to work that I found a release for everything I had held back the previous few weeks. I suppose it was because it was the first time I was away from the family and no longer had to put on a show of strength for them. When I got back to work, everyone was so concerned about us all. I was given so much support and understanding… I just crumpled into a sobbing mess. It was good to get it out of my system though and, as much as I would have preferred to be at home with Callum, it reminded me just how important my work is and that it is not just about finances.
Callum soon settled back into nursery. He has taken to it really well. Shaun’s change of job is going well too… he is getting chance to be much more involved with Callum’s schooling and gets to spend some precious time on his own with him on the days I am at work and he is on day off.
Who would have believed that we would have seen so much flooding this month. Callum was quite intrigued as traffic cones floated past outside our front window! As I was busy phoning friends to borrow spare bricks and stuff to raise our furniture off the floor, Callum was having great fun sat at the window as the water sprayed up over the front of the house each time a car or a bus foolishly drove through the water. In the end we were lucky and only had a little dampness come through under the front door. Some of our neighbours had 1-3 feet of water in! Thanks to Joe and Laura for coming down that day and helping out while Shaun was at work!
Some good news this month… Anna-Marie and Paul are to have a baby! He/she is not due until February next year, so it will be quite a wait! We really do wish them well. Good luck guys!!!
Well, I suppose I ought to go get packing. Got a house move and a holiday coming up, so not sure when I will get chance to do any work on the website.
Catch ya again soon,
Amanda xXx
