Katie Westlake
Katie's The 5k Gunge Run page
Fundraising for UK Sepsis Trust
Story
On the 9th February 2015, my life was destroyed when the Angels took my son William into heaven, here is what happened:
William was diagnosed with mild asthma as a toddler, even though they could never hear a wheeze on his chest but he used to cough after running around, sometimes to the point where he made himself physically sick through coughing. Throughout January 2015, he had one cold after another which we put down to the time of year, from the moment William started mixing with other children (he was an only child), he was ill every month without fail regardless of what time of year it was, we were forever taking him to the doctor's to be told he had a viral infection, just give him Calpol, plenty of fluids and let him rest we were told. We were also told he would grow out of it, when I asked one GP at the out of hours why he kept getting them, he advised me to keep him in and away from people because it's the secondary infection that's dangerous, so that's what we did. When he was ill, he didn't leave the house and we had no visitors.
On the Friday before we lost him, he slept with me because his asthma cough mainly affected him at night and he wouldn't settle. On the Saturday he was fine all day, running around playing with me and no cough. That night the cough returned, at 02:00 he coughed so much he was sick but the cough sounded different, I took him into my bed and gave him two puffs of his blue pump every hour until 06:30 when he finally went to sleep. We got up at 11:30 on the Sunday morning, he still had the cough so I decided to take him to the out of hours GP, when we were walking across to the unit people were staring at us because of his cough. We arrived at 15:00, he was not distressed and was happily playing with the toys in the unit. We were seen by the GP at 15:15 who diagnosed him with mild Croup, I remember thinking I'd hate to know what severe Croup sounded like, she asked me to remove his tops so she could watch him breathing. She took his temperature; normal, she checked his oxygen sats; 97%, she felt around his throat and listened to his chest; clear, which she said was probably due to amount of the blue pump I'd given him. She gave a dose of steroids, gave me a prescription for the next three days and told me to take him to his own GP the next day. We left the unit at 16:00 and I was confident he was going to be fine. We got home and he asked for something to eat, there was no indication anything out of the ordinary was wrong. We went to bed at 21:00 and he went into his dad's bed because I had work the next day; he never slept alone when he was poorly. He came into my room at 22:10, the cough had stopped and we thought he was on the mend. He climbed onto my bed, he was restless but nothing compared to how he usually was when he was poorly, he did fall off the bed but again he had done that before when he had been poorly a previous time. He was making a noise when he breathed but he wasn't struggling to breathe, he was led between my legs with his head on my thigh when at 02:10 he looked at me with a cry on his face but there were no tears, I simply said "It's ok William" because I was advised by the GP to keep him calm and he led back down. I must've fallen asleep because I suddenly became aware that I couldn't hear him breathing, I jumped up and checked him, the time was 04:00. His pupils were fixed and dilated, his mouth was slightly open and he felt clammy. I shouted his dad and dialled 999 straight away, his dad was trying to give him CPR on the bed but he wasn't doing it right. Under the instruction of the person at dispatch, I moved him into the floor and gave him CPR until the ambulance crew arrived. They rushed him into hospital and we followed, we arrived at 04:30 and we were allowed to go into the resuscitation bay with him; so we knew it was bad. It took them over an hour to get his heart started again, at 07:30 they moved him to the intensive care unit and called a specialist team from Bristol's Children's hospital to come and assess him. We were allowed in to see him at 08:10 by the time they got him settled and hooked up to several machines; a ventilator was breathing for him and they were giving him three times the normal amount of adrenalin to maintain his blood pressure. We had informed our families at this point what was going on. The specialist team arrived at around 10:30 and the consultant carried out several tests and informed us he was brain stem dead but the only way to be sure was to warm him up, so we asked them to do it. After another series of tests it was confirmed, we were allowed to hold him while his heart stopped and his time of death was recorded at 15:00. We gave him his last wash and went with him to the morgue, they allowed his dad to carry him to the doors and then we had to say goodbye; it's the hardest thing we've ever had to do. We returned home at 20:00, emotionally and mentally drained. I received a call the following evening from my GP telling me they had found Invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS) in one of his blood cultures; which is an incredibly rare form of meningitis. I was diagnosed the following day with Group A Streptococcus because I had a sore throat and I remembered William had coughed straight in my face several times on Saturday night, so he obviously had this infection then but wasn't showing any symptoms. His dad and I were prescribed a course of Penicillin, the only effective treatment for it and the infection went. I have never heard of this before and neither has people I know; which is why I'm doing this run to raise awareness of this life threatening infection that I'm told by healthcare professionals is common. My question is: if it's so common why doesn't anyone know about it?
I later found out from the coroner that William had three common infections at the same time, iGAS, Croup and Rhinovirus (causes the common cold); which led to Septiceamia and took his life. My GP told me that the iGAS is so aggressive it would've ended his life in thirty minutes, I asked the consultant directly "If I hadn't fallen asleep, could I have stopped this?" I was told no. He said it would've been worse because I would've seen it happen and still be unable to stop it. I asked the coroner directly "If I had taken him back him to the hospital, would the outcome be different?" I was told no. He said William was bombarded with one infection after another, his body just couldn't cope, it was bad luck. They cannot tell me how he got all these infections and I don't think I will ever get an answer to that question but I cannot accept "You were just very unlucky" or "It's just one of those things" or "It's bad luck" as an answer with all the technology available to us. The fact we have been told there was nothing we could do to prevent this doesn't make it any better, it makes it worse because as a parent you want to protect your child but you can't protect them from this. It's around us all the time; in the air, on our skin, down our throats and up our noses.
William loved life, he was looking forward to going to Thomas Land, he kept asking me when are we going and now he'll never get to go, along with all the other plans we'd made for him. He didn't deserve this, he was so loved and this will never make any sense to us. He never showed signs that there was something seriously wrong and I wasn't aware of him struggling; at least he went peacefully, maybe in time that might offer some comfort but for now my life is torture without him. My only hope is that some good may come from this tragedy and maybe I can stop this happening to another family.
William was diagnosed with mild asthma as a toddler, even though they could never hear a wheeze on his chest but he used to cough after running around, sometimes to the point where he made himself physically sick through coughing. Throughout January 2015, he had one cold after another which we put down to the time of year, from the moment William started mixing with other children (he was an only child), he was ill every month without fail regardless of what time of year it was, we were forever taking him to the doctor's to be told he had a viral infection, just give him Calpol, plenty of fluids and let him rest we were told. We were also told he would grow out of it, when I asked one GP at the out of hours why he kept getting them, he advised me to keep him in and away from people because it's the secondary infection that's dangerous, so that's what we did. When he was ill, he didn't leave the house and we had no visitors.
On the Friday before we lost him, he slept with me because his asthma cough mainly affected him at night and he wouldn't settle. On the Saturday he was fine all day, running around playing with me and no cough. That night the cough returned, at 02:00 he coughed so much he was sick but the cough sounded different, I took him into my bed and gave him two puffs of his blue pump every hour until 06:30 when he finally went to sleep. We got up at 11:30 on the Sunday morning, he still had the cough so I decided to take him to the out of hours GP, when we were walking across to the unit people were staring at us because of his cough. We arrived at 15:00, he was not distressed and was happily playing with the toys in the unit. We were seen by the GP at 15:15 who diagnosed him with mild Croup, I remember thinking I'd hate to know what severe Croup sounded like, she asked me to remove his tops so she could watch him breathing. She took his temperature; normal, she checked his oxygen sats; 97%, she felt around his throat and listened to his chest; clear, which she said was probably due to amount of the blue pump I'd given him. She gave a dose of steroids, gave me a prescription for the next three days and told me to take him to his own GP the next day. We left the unit at 16:00 and I was confident he was going to be fine. We got home and he asked for something to eat, there was no indication anything out of the ordinary was wrong. We went to bed at 21:00 and he went into his dad's bed because I had work the next day; he never slept alone when he was poorly. He came into my room at 22:10, the cough had stopped and we thought he was on the mend. He climbed onto my bed, he was restless but nothing compared to how he usually was when he was poorly, he did fall off the bed but again he had done that before when he had been poorly a previous time. He was making a noise when he breathed but he wasn't struggling to breathe, he was led between my legs with his head on my thigh when at 02:10 he looked at me with a cry on his face but there were no tears, I simply said "It's ok William" because I was advised by the GP to keep him calm and he led back down. I must've fallen asleep because I suddenly became aware that I couldn't hear him breathing, I jumped up and checked him, the time was 04:00. His pupils were fixed and dilated, his mouth was slightly open and he felt clammy. I shouted his dad and dialled 999 straight away, his dad was trying to give him CPR on the bed but he wasn't doing it right. Under the instruction of the person at dispatch, I moved him into the floor and gave him CPR until the ambulance crew arrived. They rushed him into hospital and we followed, we arrived at 04:30 and we were allowed to go into the resuscitation bay with him; so we knew it was bad. It took them over an hour to get his heart started again, at 07:30 they moved him to the intensive care unit and called a specialist team from Bristol's Children's hospital to come and assess him. We were allowed in to see him at 08:10 by the time they got him settled and hooked up to several machines; a ventilator was breathing for him and they were giving him three times the normal amount of adrenalin to maintain his blood pressure. We had informed our families at this point what was going on. The specialist team arrived at around 10:30 and the consultant carried out several tests and informed us he was brain stem dead but the only way to be sure was to warm him up, so we asked them to do it. After another series of tests it was confirmed, we were allowed to hold him while his heart stopped and his time of death was recorded at 15:00. We gave him his last wash and went with him to the morgue, they allowed his dad to carry him to the doors and then we had to say goodbye; it's the hardest thing we've ever had to do. We returned home at 20:00, emotionally and mentally drained. I received a call the following evening from my GP telling me they had found Invasive Group A Streptococcus (iGAS) in one of his blood cultures; which is an incredibly rare form of meningitis. I was diagnosed the following day with Group A Streptococcus because I had a sore throat and I remembered William had coughed straight in my face several times on Saturday night, so he obviously had this infection then but wasn't showing any symptoms. His dad and I were prescribed a course of Penicillin, the only effective treatment for it and the infection went. I have never heard of this before and neither has people I know; which is why I'm doing this run to raise awareness of this life threatening infection that I'm told by healthcare professionals is common. My question is: if it's so common why doesn't anyone know about it?
I later found out from the coroner that William had three common infections at the same time, iGAS, Croup and Rhinovirus (causes the common cold); which led to Septiceamia and took his life. My GP told me that the iGAS is so aggressive it would've ended his life in thirty minutes, I asked the consultant directly "If I hadn't fallen asleep, could I have stopped this?" I was told no. He said it would've been worse because I would've seen it happen and still be unable to stop it. I asked the coroner directly "If I had taken him back him to the hospital, would the outcome be different?" I was told no. He said William was bombarded with one infection after another, his body just couldn't cope, it was bad luck. They cannot tell me how he got all these infections and I don't think I will ever get an answer to that question but I cannot accept "You were just very unlucky" or "It's just one of those things" or "It's bad luck" as an answer with all the technology available to us. The fact we have been told there was nothing we could do to prevent this doesn't make it any better, it makes it worse because as a parent you want to protect your child but you can't protect them from this. It's around us all the time; in the air, on our skin, down our throats and up our noses.
William loved life, he was looking forward to going to Thomas Land, he kept asking me when are we going and now he'll never get to go, along with all the other plans we'd made for him. He didn't deserve this, he was so loved and this will never make any sense to us. He never showed signs that there was something seriously wrong and I wasn't aware of him struggling; at least he went peacefully, maybe in time that might offer some comfort but for now my life is torture without him. My only hope is that some good may come from this tragedy and maybe I can stop this happening to another family.