Just a cough?
Baby Erin in incubator
Looking down at her poorly baby, Sian Prytherch felt helpless.
Three weeks earlier she had given birth to a healthy and beautiful daughter. But Erin was now fighting for her life. She was being given round-the-clock attention on an Intensive Care Unit, and a ventilator was helping her tiny infected lungs to breathe.
Sian, from Anglesey, North Wales, says:
“I can think of no worse experience in life that compares to having a sick child, and being totally dependent on others to keep them alive. The feeling of inadequacy at being unable to help my child was terrible, it felt like being on the outside looking in on someone else’s life.”
It was January 2002 and Erin was suffering from bronchiolitis, which is a condition caused by a virus known as RSV. In the proceeding weeks her older sister and brother had been suffering from chesty coughs and colds which were most probably caused by RSV. Glesni, now aged eight, was quick to shake it off, but 18-month-old Tomos developed pneumonia and needed hospital care.
As Tomos prepared to return home again, Erin’s problems were just starting. She developed typical symptoms such as a runny nose, fever and slight shortness of breath. But when Erin also began vomiting her feeds a doctor advised Sian and her husband, Ifan, to take their daughter to the local Gwynedd Hospital where she was admitted.
‘Initially, the medical staff weren’t overly concerned because Erin wasn’t dehydrated and not distressed’, says Sian, a mobile hairdresser. But at about 6pm that evening her breathing became very laboured and Erin was transferred to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital, in Liverpool. Tests confirmed what staff had suspected, and for the first time the word bronchiolitis was uttered to Sian. ‘I didn’t have a clue what it was, I’d never heard of bronchiolitis before so it was terrifying.’
Erin’s condition was serious. She spent five days being ventilated on the Intensive Care Unit, during which time she was isolated to contain the infection. Sian took each day as it came. ‘That period of watching and just praying seemed like a lifetime, it was a living hell. She seemed to take one step forward, and another two back. The first couple of days were touch and go.’
One memory etched in Sian’s mind was Erin’s little face, ballooned out of proportion.
“Her face was so swollen her eyelids were shut tight, and it was upsetting for me not being able to see her bright blue eyes. It wasn’t the Erin that I knew.”
Erin, now fit and healthy
To the relief of the staff and her family, Erin recovered enough to be transferred to a regular ward, and after another few days she finally returned to the family home in Bodorgan. Erin is now a very outgoing and happy baby — ‘the life and soul of the room’ as her mother describes her. But the experience has left an indelible mark on her parents.
Sian says:
“Since her illness, we have become even more concerned about her health. At the slightest cough or cold she is taken to the doctors to be checked out, usually for our peace of mind than anything else. For the first few weeks after we came home I didn’t want to take her out.”
Ifan and Sian are quick to praise the ‘wonderful’ staff that treated Erin, and are forever grateful for her care. But they say that in order to prevent future parents going through the same ordeal as they did, research in this area of medicine is crucial. Sian adds: ‘Not only to find an effective treatment for the virus, but also to help improve early and correct diagnosis of the virus. Hopefully, the study that Action Medical Research is leading will play a key part and lead to a better understanding of the virus and how to manage it.’
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