Kate Speirs, from Hertfordshire, knew something was seriously wrong after a worrying Facetime call with her daughter Sophia, 19, whilst at university in 2023. Sophia came dangerously close to losing her life to MenB, one of the most common causes of meningitis in the UK.
Mum Kate says, “Sophia was admitted to hospital whilst she was in her first year at Manchester University. She had spent a day vomiting and feeling very ill with a high temperature and flu-like symptoms.
“It was only when I Facetimed her and saw her jaw wide open and eyes glazed over that I raised the alarm. She was unable to speak or move.
“She managed to message her flatmates, who called 999. Over the phone, I heard the words “heart attack” and “we’re escalating this” – and then “the ambulance is downstairs”. When I arrived at the hospital after a three-hour drive, she was still in resus and had been diagnosed with sepsis and put on IV antibiotics.
“They had put her straight on the IV on arrival and soon after I got there, they moved her to intensive care. They showed me what looked like small patches of acne on both of her hips and asked me if she normally had spots there. They weren’t the typical bright purple meningitis rash and they were puzzling over it.
“They suspected meningitis but were unable to perform a lumber puncture to prove it because she was too ill. But the antibiotics were doing their thing and finally, after 36 hours, they were able to perform a lumbar puncture and confirm she had bacterial meningococcal meningitis group B. Fortunately, they had put her on the correct antibiotics from the start to treat this, which saved her life.
“In total, she spent nine days in intensive care and the high dependency unit. Because of the meningitis and sepsis, she suffered from myocarditis and pericarditis (inflammation around her heart) and associated heart attack-like symptoms, septic arthritis in her hip (requiring emergency surgery) and hearing loss.
“Every day we thought she was making progress and then something would happen to set her back. Once the surgery was completed, she was able to move to an orthopaedic ward for another five days. We now know just how lucky Sophia was and how close it was to being a different outcome. These were the most terrifying weeks of our lives.
“The hospital stay was not the end of it, as meningitis sadly can have some long-lasting effects. She spent a lot of time resting and recuperating in bed at home as she continued with the antibiotics, then a further brain MRI, a cardiac MRI and countless blood tests.
“Just six weeks later, whilst seemingly on the road to recovery, she was readmitted to hospital for a further six days with a suspected infection and pericarditis. It was utterly terrifying for us and devastating for her.
“Following this stay, she gradually started to regain her strength and get back to the new normal. Like before, but with a lot of fatigue – so fewer late nights than a 19-year-old would ideally want. She had cochlear implant surgery in June, which has helped her hearing so much and has helped to reduce the tinnitus she was suffering from after the hearing loss.
“She had a long summer of recuperating and then returned to University in Manchester in September. She was given the all-clear on her heart and told she could go back to playing sport, so she started to play lacrosse again and join in with normal university life.
“Christmas felt like a real turning point, and we celebrated the New Year toasting a year with no more traumatic events. But that wasn’t to be. On her return to Manchester at the end of January, the heat attack symptoms came back and she suffered another episode of pericarditis.
“Nearly two years on from first being ill, Sophia has gone to Portugal as part of her year abroad. She finally seems relatively back to normal and in good health.
“It is so important for me to share this story because all this could have been avoided if she had been given the MenB vaccine. She received every vaccine that was offered to her within the NHS vaccine programme, including the MenACWY vaccine at school when she was in Year 9. Babies have been offered it on the NHS since 2015, so those who were born before that will not have been offered it.
“We were unaware, as so many others are, that MenB is a different vaccine that the NHS don’t currently offer to teenagers. And yet it is the cause of 9 out of 10 cases of meningococcal meningitis in the UK.”