My name is Liz and I have been a carer/mother for my daughter Charlotte since she contracted pneumococcal meningitis at the age of 13 months old.
Because of the lack of urgency and doctor's belief of what I was trying to tell him, as well as the lack of care she received on her first admission to hospital, she did not make a full recovery. So just over two weeks later and many many calls to my GP as well as the hospital she was readmitted with septicaemia, gangrene and a recurrence of the same strain of meningitis.
After a lot of hospital messing around and being told that she was going to die she was transferred to Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. We were originally told that she would have to have complete limb amputation but thankfully, because of a very specialist doctor intervention and five days of plasma exchange, she started to recover. She had been through near organ failure and terrible pain, lost fingertips and toes, but she survived.
Charlotte's journey has been long and looking back at all the things she has been through since her recovery is hard. The hearing loss alone has been a challenge because emotions at times have been hard to endure. There have been times that I have found it hard to cope.
Three years after the meningitis we found out that her bone growth had been affected and she endured yet more surgery and terrible pain that has lasted right up to the present day.
This story does have lots of other elements that I have not been able to share at this present time due to legal reasons.
LIZ EALES
DECEMBER 2009