Matthew is the middle child, always happy to blend into the background, but the one who struggled the most to adjust to our new situation. He was always very active, but recently had been having a crisis of confidence not quite himself, nothing that I could put my finger on. All three children suffered from Gastric reflux from birth, Matthews had resolved years ago, but had recently resurfaced, he wasn't eating properly, looked a bit pale, a little underweight. I was concerned but without anything specific it was a case of watch and wait.
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| Catching Leaves October 2009 |
It was February half term, 2010. Access with their dad had been sporadic and difficult, particularly with Abigail. Matthew had a mild fever for a few days, which seemed to resolve itself. We were due to go and stay with my sister for the weekend, which given everything that had been going on was going to be a welcome change of scene.
19th February 2010
Matthew woke at 3.20am screaming hysterically. He had the most awful nightmare, that he had been bitten by a snake and died. He had never suffered with nightmares. He went back to sleep, but was still very shaky and anxious about it the next day.
I picked them up from Holiday club after lunch with the car packed ready to leave. Matthew was a little warm again, 38C nothing major and seemed OK in himself. So we left for Andover. By the time we got there 1½ hrs later he was hotter, but after ibuprofen, ate his tea and slept quite well.
On the Saturday he wasn't so well and as the day went on he became progressively worse with his temperature hitting 41c at its peak, the fever was out of control. We slept fitfully through the night, I just wanted to get home and get him to a Dr.
Sunday 21st February 2010
When I sat him up on Sunday Morning he had what appeared to be a blood blister rash on his neck. My first fear was Meningitis and my Brother in Law came with us to their local Minor Injuries.
They were not particularly interested, didn't think he was that hot and really thought it was nothing to worry about. However they rang our local hospital and suggested I took him down for a blood test when we got home, just to cover all bases.
I arranged for my Mum and Dad to come over to my house to look after Abigail and Thomas whilst I took Matthew to our local hospital, which was an hour away from our home (having already driven 1½hrs from Andover home).
We set off with a book to read in the hospital expecting a long delay. When we got there he was shown to his own room to be assessed. We were seen by a junior Dr very quickly, who I realised (in hindsight) had alarm bells ringing immediately. He had found some odd tiny red dots on his ankles and wrists. He asked some odd questions and told me they couldn't rule out some forms of Meningitis or a kidney problem that can result from a nasty virus and they may need to do a lumber puncture. Then he said words that will stick with me forever....."We've got him now, he's going to be OK".
Within 5-10 minutes he was back with a Senior Dr again talking about lumber punctures and needing to take blood. I, at this point had started rambling about whether he had to stay or not! They were good, I had no idea what the Junior Dr had found when he examined Matthew and the senior Dr didn't give away any clues either. Blood and xrays on the agenda.
Matthew had his first Cannula inserted, he was so brave. They took blood and started him straight away on IV antibiotics, kind of like liquid bleach, kills all known germs. Alarm bells were ringing in my head.
Once the xray was done we were moved down onto the main Children's ward into his own room and I settled him and went home to get some clothes and bits and pieces. On my way back to the hospital my mum rang me to say the Senior Dr was trying to get hold of me and had said he was going off shift but would wait for me. True to his word he did.
This Dr was called Jon and was a locum from our local Children's Hospital, Matthews blood had shown that he was very anaemic and his spleen and liver were enlarged. His body was struggling to cope with something. Of course I wanted to know what that something was. I had known in the back of my mind for some time that something was not right. Jon told me that it could be Glandular Fever, but Monday would be a day of lots of tests. I remember asking him if it was Leukaemia, at that point they didn't know what it was.
Monday 22 February 2010
Matthew had blood taken first thing that morning, but other than that, there were no signs of any other tests. I noticed the odd sidelong looks, but everyone looks at all the patients. I popped off the ward for lunch and decided that I ought to contact his Dad and let him know he was in hospital. I told him it wasn't anything to worry about and I would let him know if anything changed.
I got back to the ward and there was a posse (no other word could describe it) of people waiting for me. At least two Dr's and Claire the nurse. We went into Matthews room which seemed so full of people where the Dr told me in the most unsympathetic way you can imagine that they thought Matthew had Leukaemia.
There it was - the Elephant in the room.
One minute I was standing and my first question was outcome, the next minute I was on the bed, Claire had hold of me so tight. Matthew saw the panic, fear and devastation on my face. I couldn't speak. He had no idea what that word meant. He thought the Dr had just said he was going to die!
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