My daughter Anaamika Gupta, aged twelve years, came home from school on 2nd July 2024 with a high grade fever and feeling tired. A dose of paracetamol was given to her.
By evening two purple rashes appeared, one on hand and one on leg but we had no idea what they were. At night, she again had fever and body aches, for which one dose of Combiflam was given. The next morning she did not have a fever but had weakness and lower limb pain. She was talking and felt ok until 1pm.
At 1pm she vomited and later complained of a severe headache. She started losing consciousness and became dull. I was in the office and rushed home. At around 3pm she spoke her last words and went unconscious. I took her to hospital and by that time her body had tiny little purple dots and she started having seizures. The emergency doctor in gave medicine to make the mind sleep.
She had to be admitted in PICU (paediatric intensive care unit) but due to there being no available bed, she was taken to another hospital. We lost precious daugther one hour and later at around 5pm she was given a CT scan and were advised she would be put on a ventilator. One of her pupils became dilated and non-reactive, which the doctor said these are the signs of being brain-dead.
By 11:30 both eyes were dilated and non-reactive. She was on ventilator for the next four days. Two EEGs (Electroencephalogram) were performed but showed no brain activity. On day five we were informed by the doctors that her heart had stopped working despite being on a ventilator. We lost our twelve-year-old daughter due to lack of knowledge of symptoms of meningitis.
