HOW THE BLOOD FROM A TOTAL STRANGER HELPED MY LITTLE SON BEAT A DEADLY DISEASE
Ahead of World Blood Donor Day this Thursday, Lisa Smyth hears why two families in Northern Ireland feel huge gratitude to those who regularly give blood
James was a healthy little boy and then in April last year he started vomiting and having diarrhoea. To begin with we put it down to a wee tummy bug, but it got to the point where he was passing a stool every 15 minutes and after three days there really was nothing left for him to pass.
It looked like he was almost passing the lining of his gut and then he started passing blood in his stools, so we took him to A&E.
They weren’t overly concerned and sent us home but it kept getting worse. He was so lethargic and so sick, so we took him back to hospital and they did some blood tests and realised he was in total renal failure.
We come from a farming background and they said he must have picked up a strain of E Coli from the cattle. He was admitted to the paediatric ward at Craigavon and by this stage he wasn’t passing any urine at all so the doctors were very concerned about him.
They told us they wanted to transfer him up to the Royal so the kidney specialists could see him. My husband went in the ambulance with him while I drove behind — it was such an awful drive.
It turned out the E Coli had attacked his red blood cells, breaking them down, which meant that when the blood was travelling through his kidneys all the broken cells were clogging up his kidneys and stopping them from working. It also meant his haemoglobin levels were very low.
By this stage he was really ill — he was still conscious but he was very weak, very swollen. He just lay there. James was really unlucky; out of all the people who get E Coli only 1% develop this complication.
The staff at the Royal were amazing. They told us they wanted to observe James for 24 hours to see if his urine output would return because sometimes the kidneys kick-start themselves.
However, that didn’t happen and they were pumping fluids into him which were going nowhere and he was getting more swollen and puffy.
On the second day they started him on dialysis and he had to go to theatre to get all his lines and feeding tubes put in. He had three tubes coming out of his neck.
Handing him over to the theatre staff was absolutely terrifying as he was just a baby really. It might seem strange but I just had to do something for the two hours he was in theatre. I ended up going to a laundrette up the Falls Road to get his blanket and teddy bear washed as he’d been sick all over them.
Even while James was on dialysis, the blood cells were still being broken down and he needed blood transfusions because his haemoglobin levels were so low. He ended up getting three units over three days.
We were told he could be on dialysis from one or two days right up to six or seven weeks and in the end he stayed on dialysis for three weeks.
Probably the lowest point for me came during the first week because James was in so much pain they had to give him morphine to help manage it. He became unresponsive and the consultant was so worried she sent him for a CT scan of his brain to see if he was having a silent seizure.
We’d been told that one of the main causes of death from the condition was seizures and I just remember standing in the scanner with him and crying and crying. It turned out that it was just the morphine because his body wasn’t filtering it properly because of the kidney failure. After a few weeks we started to see a difference in him. Eventually he was allowed home but only during the day at the start as they had to monitor him so closely.
My husband and I took it in turns to stay with him in hospital but it was such a stressful time because Lucy was at home, so I felt like I didn’t really see her for six weeks.
It was such an exhausting experience but we also feel so lucky to be where we are now because James wouldn’t be alive if he hadn’t had those blood transfusions.
He still isn’t down to an annual appointment because there’s still some protein in his urine which is a sign that the injury to his kidney is still there, but he’s a totally different child this year compared to this time last year. He has so much more energy now, whereas last summer he would just sit around. He’s due to start pre-school in September and he’s so excited about it.
It’s amazing to see the differ- ence in him, though doctors have told us that it’s likely he will go into renal failure again sometime in the future because of the damage that has already happened. They said the treatment that he has received will not last his lifespan, but they just don’t know when that will happen. It could be in his 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or even his 60s. We are just hoping that it happens later rather than sooner, but when it does happen he will need more blood transfusions.
Being in the position where a loved one needs blood really changes your perspective on the whole subject. I still find it surreal that my wee boy is running around with someone else’s blood in his body and that he needed blood when he was so young.
In our case, it shows that blood isn’t only used when something dramatic like an accident happens, that you can be completely healthy one day and the next you need a transfusion to save your life because of an illness.
It also shows that an adult, someone you have never met, can save the life of a baby who has just started out in their life. It’s an incredible gift.
I used to give blood every so often but now that I realise how important it is, I give it religiously. It’s only when someone you love is affected that you realise that it actually does save lives.
It takes about half an hour, three times a year. I know now that as a mother of a child who needed a blood transfusion that we will be eternally grateful to the people who gave blood and saved James’ life.”
‘James was so ill ... he wouldn’t be alive now if he hadn’t had those blood transfusions’ Teacher Laura Lennox (34) lives in Moneymore, Co Londonderry, with her husband, Gareth, also 34. The couple have two children, James, who turns four in August, and twoand-a-half-year-old Lucy. She says: