Paris, from Leicester, tells their story.
“You always hear about the dreaded 'meningitis', but the reality is that you don't really think about it too much until it finally affects you...
“New Years Eve 2014 I set down my daughter Evie, who was 20 months at the time, to bed as usual. She had been mildly unwell in the few days prior, but you just put it down to being the winter and bugs are going around.
“We woke up New Years Day at the start of 2015 to find her temperature soaring and a confusion about everything. As she was so young we thought it be best to go and get her checked out, but with it being New Years Day our usual GP was shut - we now realise how much of a blessing this was as it meant that instead we took a trip to the children's A&E in Leicester.
“Initially the doctors thought that she had swallowed a battery, but as soon as my partner and I mentioned the confusion she seemed to be showing the mood instantly changed and the word meningitis was being thrown around. I remember we just thought, "But there isn't a rash".
Weaker and weaker
“We ended up staying in a quarantined room and stayed in hospital for just over a month whilst Evie was undergoing lots of different tests. All the while she was getting weaker and weaker. As they didn't want to waste time by finding out exactly which kind of meningitis she had so they treated her for both viral and bacterial kinds.
“She was hooked onto a saline drip, she wouldn't eat, she had to go through a lot of cannulas and x-rays and lumbar punctures and eventually because Evie kept pulling out her cannulas in frustration, they had to put in a long line.
“Evie’s strength gradually rebuilt but she had to re-learn how to walk because her legs had become so weak, and we had to have lots of follow up appointments for hearing/sight etc. But miraculously Evie walked away without any underlying health problems, and from what I hear, we had a very, very lucky turnout.”
After Evie’s recovery, Paris and four friends decided to cycle to France, which Paris used to raise money for Meningitis Now. Read all about their adventure.
