Mikey Ellis Walsh
Group B Strep meningitis
Mikey was born on the 3rd April 2008, a healthy 8lb 10oz, and seemed perfectly healthy. He fed an hour after being born and three hours after that.
But from then on his feeding became erractic. I notified the doctors in hospital, as well as asking them why his left leg was always bent up and he cried when you tried to straighten it. They said it was all fine and released us after 12 hours.
When we got Mikey home on the Friday he whined constantly, he hardly fed and he did not sleep unless we constantly stroked his head.
On the Saturday the midwife came and I raised my concerns again, and again she said he was fine. By Sunday afternoon he had not fed in over 12 hours, his head was locked to one side and he cried constantly. By this point I'd had enough and rang the midwife, who said to bring him to St James' Hospital.
By the time we got there he had become unresponsive and hypothermic and in two days he had dropped to 7lb. They asked me if I was a GBS carrier, to which I replied "what's that?". They said if you haven't heard of it you haven't been tested. They took urine and blood and then performed a lumbar puncture on him. It looked like milk and they told us there and then it was meningitis; my world came crashing down around me.
I went to comfort Mikey as he was crying, as I held his hand he went quiet and was staring blankly, he felt cold and looked grey. I'll never forget that for as long as I live. I said to the doctor "something's wrong" and he immediately called to the nurse "bag him". This happened four times so he was sent straight up to PICU and put on life support. There were tubes everywhere even in his head, he became swollen and our little man was unrecognisable. We were told that night that he may not make it and if he did he may have brain damage. We were shell shocked.
He responded to treatment really well and was moved after five days to a children's ward, but after only two days on there he became ill again. They performed a CAT scan and we were told the bad news that he had an abscess on the brain and we wouldn't know for a few weeks what that would mean for him.
After nearly four weeks in hospital Mikey was released, but we had to return two weeks later for an MRI scan which revealed that he had some damage to the brain which controlled his motor functions. We were devastated. It was explained to us that we may never see any results of the damage as his brain had not fully developed and may correct itself, or there maybe something, unfortunately we just had to wait and see.
The first year of Mikey's life was really hard on him, us and our five-year-old daughter. We were always watching to see him hit milestones - which he did - and we had to deal with his bad temper. He is continually monitored at the hospital but at 14 months old he has hit every milestone and it looks like we are going to be very lucky and, touch wood, have no long-lasting affects.
The staff at St James' were first class and we thank them from the bottom of our hearts.
We realise how lucky we were, but after reading some of the other stories it makes me so sad that we as parents and our children have to suffer this nightmare when it could so easily be avoided with a simple test, or at least information on GBS in maternity care so that we can decide ourselves to pay for a test.
My final words are for Mikey: you are our little hero and we are amazed by you and so proud of everything you have had to overcome and still are today.xx
NATASHA WALSH