Simone Shoffman's story
Social media influencer Simone, also known as Si Si, was 38 weeks pregnant when their two year old son, CJ, contracted meningitis.
Our son CJ contracted chicken pox just before his second birthday. He became very unwell and by his actual second birthday we took him to the doctors – they told us he had an ear, nose and throat (ENT) infection and gave us antibiotics.
He didn’t pick up and by 4 am the next morning something told me to get him straight to hospital. His temperature was not controllable with Calpol (children’s pain relief), he became almost non responsive and started to show photophobic signs.
A rare complication
When we got to hospital they took his bloods and his infection markers were over 300. They confirmed meningitis after carrying out a spinal tap. This was all an extremely unfortunate complication of chickenpox. I was just under 38 weeks pregnant with my daughter at the time.
We were so anxious and because of the rarity of the case the hospital had to be advised by another hospital with an infectious diseases unit (St Mary’s).
Seeing your two year old constantly injected and given so many drugs was distressing and we didn't know what the long term implications would be.
Looking ahead
Luckily he seems to have made a full recovery but we are still under the care of a paediatrician for follow ups to check everything is on track developmentally.
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