My Mam Christina was a perfectly heathy lady who lived her life beautifully. 

With my dad by her side they had many happy years with experiences a lot of people can only dream of. I feel so proud to say Christina is my mother, my best friend that never clocked off.

I've put my 5 children to bed with worse symptoms than what my Mam had, a bit cold, sickness and a sore back. This started on the Sunday. 

By Monday the sickness had stopped but my Mam felt rough as you do when you've had a bout of sickness, 

Tuesday my mar wasn't feeling any better but no worse - you automatically assume its flu. 

My dad found my Mam lying on the living room floor Wednesday morning completely unresponsive, phoned for an ambulance and everything went wrong from then on really quickly. 

My Mam was placed into a medically induced coma straight away. From the minute we arrived everything was serious. The fluid around my Mam’s brain was infected.

By Thursday morning we were told my Mam’s brain had swelled and that they were very sure that my Mam was brain dead.

The life support machine was kept on till Sunday the 8th May, purely for legal reasons as my mar lost her battle with meningitis so quickly. The sepsis was brutal, crept in so fast. Meningitis is the cruellest, quickest infection we have ever had the misfortune of dealing with. 

Unfortunately it's not until you see the brutality of these things that we became aware properly of the illness out there. 

In honour of Christina Bentley, please make donations to help the medical profession understand and hopefully one day find the right medicine that is just as aggressive to stop meningitis as quick as it starts.

Meningitis stole my dad’s wife, my mother, my children's Granmar, my grandad’s daughter and my uncle’s sister.