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Aoife's Story

My Mummy and Daddy will never forget Monday 3rd March 2014: I was 9 weeks old and had been feeling poorly for a couple of days so Mummy took me to the doctors in the morning.  He thought I had a chest infection and told Mummy to take me to Good Hope Hospital to get some antibiotics.  However, within five minutes of us getting there, their world was turned upside down.  Mummy watched in horror as a big oxygen mask was placed over my tiny face, lots of lines were put into my veins and a swarm of consultants, doctors and nurses surrounded me.  Daddy soon arrived from work to be with us and the doctors told them that I was very poorly and needed specialist care.  The doctors then put me into an induced coma as my little body was finding it too difficult to breathe.

As Good Hope didn't have the resources I needed, my parents were told that I would have to be moved to a Children's Intensive Care Unit in Stoke as there were no beds at Birmingham Children's Hospital.  To do this, the KIDS (Kids Intensive Care and Decision Support) team came out to me.  They battled hard for over four hours to try to stabilise me enough to make it safe to transfer me to Stoke.  I had deteriorated quickly, so Mummy and Daddy had to take the sad decision to have me baptised in the hospital. 

I was finally given permission to be moved and was put in a special incubator pod and then whisked by the KIDS team's specialist ambulance up to the University Hospital North Staffordshire and was taken to their Children's Intensive Care Unit.

I had to stay there for a week, slowly being weaned from all the medicine and life support I needed.  Mummy and Daddy stayed with me at my bedside, leaving my big sister, Isla, at home with Nanny and Grandad.  I was in hospital for her 5th birthday which made Mummy and Daddy very sad as they missed her very much.

Mummy and Daddy wanted to share my story because facing the prospect of losing your baby is something that no parent should ever have to face.  The heartache of leaving one child at home while they care for the other in hospital leaves you guilt-ridden and torn.  Yet through this nightmare, the KIDS team and the wonderful staff at the CICU did whatever they could to help ease Mummy and Daddy's pain.  They gave them sugary snacks in the ambulance to give them energy and offered them mobile phone chargers so they could call home.  The hospital gave them a lovely room to stay in so they could stay with me and helped Mummy to express breast milk so she could keep on feeding me.  They encouraged them to let Isla come and see me and had a little birthday party for her next to my cot.  They understood the pain Mummy and Daddy were feeling and did whatever they could to comfort them and make the worst week of their lives a little easier.

I was finally diagnosed with human metapneumovirus which then caused septicemia.  The survival rates for babies with this condition makes grim reading, but I was one of the lucky ones.  I was finally allowed home on Monday 10th March and I am now a very happy and content baby.

My family now think it is important to try to give something back to the people who saved my life.  My sister opened some of her birthday cards at the hospital and found some money inside one.  She asked Mummy and Daddy if she could give that money to the nurses to help to look after the children.  Mummy and Daddy want to follow her example and raise as much money as possible to help ensure that more children can be helped and their families supported through such difficult times.

Thank you for reading my story and helping Mummy and Daddy.

Lots of love,

Aoife xx

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