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Stories

Logan's story

20th July 2018

Kirsten Kininmonth from Greenock, Inverclyde, was concerned when her baby boy Logan had a high temperature and refused to feed

Logan's story

Here, she shares their story and praises the hospital staff for their quick and exceptional treatment.

"Our seven-week-old boy was strong and healthy, weighing 9lb 9oz at birth, breastfeeding well and often.

"One Saturday he was restless and had a bit of a temperature, but as he was our third child we weren’t too worried. By Sunday morning he hadn’t slept well and was hardly feeding, and had a horrible cry when we picked him up.

"I took him to our local A&E department, but he had settled a bit by now and his temperature was down. I was told "It’s probably nothing, but if you can go to the Royal Alexandra Hospital it might be best".

"I drove home, collected my husband and we went to the other hospital. The nurse who saw us said he seemed ok (his vital stats were not concerning), but she wasn’t happy with his cry.

"The nurse called a doctor, who as it turned out was a trainee GP and hadn’t seen a young baby before. Luckily, she called another doctor who quickly decided to do a lumbar puncture.

"I was scared but the nurse was amazing and quite firm, saying we shouldn’t go with him as it would be distressing for us.

"He had the lumbar puncture at 11:30pm and the next time we saw him he was sleeping, full of wires and a drip.

"I still thought it wasn’t possibly as bad as we feared, so told Kevin to go home as he would have to get the other two kids to school and nursery in the morning.

"The doctor came to our room at 2:30am and was so kind, all he said was, "It’s a good thing we did the lumbar puncture - it showed traces of meningitis".

"I’ll never forget sitting in the room after he left, Logan in the cot, in shock and having to tell Kevin it was meningitis.

"For almost two days we waited to see what strain it was, hoping it was viral, but it came back as bacterial. This meant spending two weeks in hospital away from the other kids, which was very difficult.

"Luckily, he responded to treatment and within a few days was starting to feed again.

"We had a scare when his temperature kept spiking, so doctors did an MRI scan in case he needed surgery.

"Walking him down to the MRI suite and seeing everyone looking at this tiny bundle, was the hardest part for some reason. Kevin took him into the test and as soon as they left I broke down. For some reason it all hit me at once.

"Again, we were lucky - within the day his temperature dropped and remained stable.

"When he was discharged we knew there would be lots of follow up appointments, and the hospital team were fab.

"His consultant was exceptional, and the team at audiology were so calming and reassuring. He passed all the tests and starts school in August.

"Sometimes it seems like we imagined it, but every meningitis story we see, reminds us how lucky we all were and how amazing the hospital was."

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