Kian Downes's story

My little boy Kian was born Christmas day 2003 but sadly grew his angel wings 5th of May 2004.

The night before he was taken he was irritable but was feeding as normal with no other symptoms, the following morning his big brother woke up so I brought them both out into the living room and that's when I discovered the rash as small few blotches on his forehead. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise he was in and out of consciousness.

The next hour things deteriorated pretty quickly. We rang an ambulance a half an hour later but there was no sign of it so we just put him in a buggy and ran to my doctors. Thanks to the amazing doctor he cleared the surgery and saw him immediately he gave him penicillin the ambulance arrived there and wheeled him pass me wide awake looking right at me. Foolishly, at 20 years of age, I thought he was ok because he was awake.

We followed in the ambulance but when we got to the hospital he had sadly passed in the ambulance. The rapid onset will haunt me to this day, the guilt of not responding faster will never go away either. Sometimes symptoms are not always there and that's possibly why I didn’t ever think it was meningitis.

This year would of been my gorgeous boys 16th birthday & we think of him every day. 💙

Claire Shiels
October 2019