Killer bug ate his eye

My Rhys was so close to death

While I helped cook the tea in my neighbour’s kitchen, our kids were playing happily together.

It was September last year, and we shared a lovely communal garden.

‘Mum, I’m going out the back,’ my son Rhys, 4, called out, full of beans.

‘OK,’ I shouted as Rhys ran outside.

Only, two seconds later, he raced back in, screaming and holding his eye. ‘What happened?’ I cried. ‘I hurt myself running,’ he said, sobbing.

Poor thing!

His right eye was cut, bleeding, already puffy. ‘We best get that looked at,’ I said. At the University Hospital of Wales, a doctor cleaned the 1cm wound, glued it together, and gave Rhys a butterfly stitch. ‘All better,’ I smiled, taking my boy home. Rhys wasn’t sure how he’d hurt himself, but another neighbour had seen it happen. ‘He ran outside, straight into that pole,’ he explained to me and Rhys’ dad Tristan, 33. A metal pole stuck out of the ground for residents to pop a rotary washing line in. My Rhys had smacked straight into it. ‘He’s got a right shiner,’ I said. But, all patched up, Rhys happily went back to school the next day. So I went to my 24-hour shift as a carer. Only, the next morning, Tristan texted, worried. Rhys was sick twice last night and his eye looks worse, he wrote. He sent a photo. Rhys’ right eye had swollen shut overnight. I’ll be home in 30 minutes, I texted back.

Only, by the time I arrived at 9.30am, Rhys’s left eye was swollen shut, too.

‘He won’t get out of bed,’ Tristan worried.

‘Something’s not right,’ I agreed.

We raced him back to hospital, where he was rushed to Resus.

Panicking, I held Tristan.

Doctors did tests, took blood, hooked Rhys up to a drip.

‘I can’t see, Mummy. My eyes hurt,’ Rhys whimpered.

He was scared, but not really with it.

‘It’s OK, the doctors will help,’ I promised, fighting back the tears myself.

That evening, Rhys was placed on a ward.

‘He has a severe infection,’ the doctor said.

They were waiting for final results to find out what, but it was ravaging poor Rhys’ little body.

He was pumped full of antibiotics by the doctors.

My heart broke seeing him in a hospital bed, roaring temperature, in pain, his little face swollen and red.

You see, Rhys had been our miracle baby...

Tristan and I had suffered three miscarriages before he was born in March 2012.

Each miscarriage was tougher than the last.

Then, in August 2015, I’d fallen pregnant again – a brother for Rhys. We’d been so excited. Only, a scan at five months showed our baby, named Isaac, had acrania.

It meant his skull hadn’t formed properly.

Medics gave Isaac zero chance of surviving labour, and carrying to term would be dangerous for me.

So, Tristan and I had made the gut-wrenching decision to have a termination.

We were devastated, but Rhys had kept us going.

Now this...

Over the next 48 hours, Rhys’ eyes blistered, pus poured from the wound.

He had surgery to drain the acrid fluid.

‘We cut out more infection than we expected to find,’ the doctor said after. ‘Rhys is very lucky.’

They’d had to slice away tissue and skin from his eyelid.

After, Rhys had a patch over his right eye, but he could see a little out of his left.

Thrilled, he was soon back playing games on his tablet. But he wasn’t out the woods. While the swelling had reduced, the redness still crept across his cheeks.

Tristan and I spent all day at the hospital, took it in turns to go home and sleep at night.

After five days, Rhys perked

There was a big sign on the hospital door: Infection control

up enough for us to take him to the cafe for some crisps.

Only, when we got back on the ward, it was being decontaminated!

‘What’s going on?’ I cried, staring at the orange biohazard bags.

A big sign on the door read

Infection control. What the hell?!

I thought.

The doctor sat us down – Rhys’ results were back.

‘Rhys has had an invasive streptococcus infection,’ she explained.

It’s a nasty infection that spreads rapidly.

And, worse, the bacteria had burrowed into his tissue, turned into necrotising fasciitis.

A deadly ‘flesh-eating’ bug.

Shocked, face pale, I had to sit down.

The bug had been destroying Rhys’ face, his eye.

‘If you’d left it 24 hours longer, it would have been too late,’ the doctor said.

Rhys was lucky it hadn’t destroyed his eye, left him blind.

Thankfully, he was over the worst, but it was still terrifying.

‘He could’ve died,’ I wept to Tristan, absolutely horrified.

It didn’t bear thinking about.

Rhys had more surgery to curb the spread of the infection.

It was successful. Finally, Rhys was infection-free.

After 11 days, we were able to take him home.

By that time, the garden pole had been removed.

Thank God.

Rhys, now 5, has bounced back to his boisterous self.

He has a scar on his right eyelid, and still can’t close it properly, so regularly needs eye drops.

But he’s been so brave, calls it his ‘special eye’.

I’m just glad we got to the hospital when we did.

Before it was too late.