Dying because she wanted perfect teeth
Andrea Kitchen, 42, from Hull, hadn’t a clue why her daughter was so ill.
Checking out her smile in the orthodontist’s waiting room mirror, my daughter Leah, then 14, sighed. ‘I can’t wait to have perfect teeth,’ she said.
‘Just have a bit of patience, they’ll be sorted before you know it,’ I replied.
In fact, we were almost there with Leah’s braces.
She’d had fixed metal braces on her top and bottom teeth for 18 months now and you could see her teeth straightening out nicely.
She’d decided to get a brace in June 2016 because she hated how crooked her teeth were.
Though she felt a little selfconscious wearing one, she’d been far more self-conscious about her snaggly teeth.
Plus, dozens of other kids in her year had them, too.
‘Leah Kitchen?’ a voice called from a treatment room.
We made our way in and
Leah settled in the chair, ready to have her braces tightened. We were used to this by now.
Every six weeks, it was the same routine.
We’d head to Leah’s appointment together, then I’d make sure I was armed with painkillers to combat the terrible aching she always suffered in her teeth and jaw afterwards.
After the appointment, we headed home, and Leah tucked into a bowl of custard – she’d only be able to eat soft food for a few days.
It was almost a week after the appointment when Leah complained to me that she was feeling unwell.
‘I’ve got an awful headache, Mum,’ she said. I felt her forehead. ‘You’re burning up! I said. ‘It must be the flu.’ All the symptoms were there.
Achy muscles and cold sweats.
‘Get some rest,’ I said, ushering Leah back to bed.
But overnight she got so much worse, and in the early hours, she was vomiting violently.
‘I’m worried,’ I told my partner Ian, 53, when Leah was still vomiting at 2am. ‘She really doesn’t seem right.’ ‘I think you should take her to the emergency doctor,’ he said. So we rushed Leah to the surgery. ‘This is just flu,’ a doctor told us after examining Leah. ‘She needs rest.’ He sent us home. But I was still worried and, back at home, Leah quickly started vomiting again.
A week later she wasn’t feeling any better. Then... ‘Why have we got a new washing machine in the kitchen, Mum?’ she asked me one night.
I stared at her, baffled. The washing machine was the same one we’d had for years.
‘Oh and I love the new tiles in the bathroom,’ she called from the sofa. What theé? The tiles were the same ones we’d had since we’d moved in.
‘This is just not right,’ I said to Ian, worried.
Rushing her straight to Hull Royal Infirmary at 7pm that night, I spoke to the nurse on the desk.
‘This is more than flu,’ I said. ‘She doesn’t even know where she is right now.’
Doctors agreed it was serious and started treating Leah for meningitis. I froze, terrified. Please God, don’t let it be that. But tests soon revealed that
wasn’t what she was suffering from. ‘Thank goodness,’ I said. But they still didn’t know what was wrong.
‘We need to do an MRI scan,’ a consultant told me. ‘It will take about 20 minutes.’
I watched nervously as Leah was slowly moved into the machine.
But 20 minutes ticked into an hour, then two…
‘What’s wrong with her? What’s wrong with my daughter?’ I asked nurses, begging for information. But no one could say. Two and a half hours later, Leah was finally back on the ward.
‘We’ve found an infection on her spine,’ a consultant said. I gasped, tears in my eyes. But he wasn’t finished. ‘We’ve also found bacteria on her heart,’ he explained.
‘It’s known as endocarditis. The infection has been pushed into her bloodstream from her mouth. It then travelled to her brain.
We think a sharp edge of her metal braces is the cause.’ I was gobsmacked. They thought the metal of her brace had cut her gum, allowing bacteria to enter her bloodstream. It explained the confusion, the vomiting and the fever.
All symptoms that had seemed like a bad case of the flu. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe how ill a set of braces had made my little girl.
Almost immediately, Leah was transferred to Leeds General lnfirmary to see a heart specialist.
As we travelled there by ambulance, I called my mum and dad and asked them to meet us there.
Leah was kept in under observation overnight, but by the next morning, she was still confused and disorientated.
‘When is your birthday?’ a doctor asked Leah as he checked on her.
Frowning, she then turned to me and whispered.
‘Mum, I don’t know the answer to that question.’ I was horrified. ‘You have to make her better!‘ I pleaded to the doctor.
‘She needs heart surgery immediately,’ he said.
Two hours later, as Leah was taken down to the operating theatre, I said a silent prayer.
‘Please fix her,’ I muttered to no one in particular.
After an agonising five and a half hours, we finally had some news.
‘The surgery has gone well,’ her doctor said. ‘But she’s still very poorly.’ As I sat beside Leah’s bed after the operation, she gradually started to open her eyes. ‘Hi Mum,’ she whispered. Hugging her tightly, I breathed a sigh of relief. She’d recognised me. But I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet.
Leah had to spend a further six weeks in hospital where she was given antibiotics to shake off the deadly infection.
She was still in hospital when her 15th birthday came round. Ian and I brought balloons, cards and presents. Sitting with Leah on the end of the bed, we watched as she opened each one. We smiled and joked,
but seeing her there in the hospital bed was heartbreaking.
I was so desperate for
her to come home. Finally, on 15 January
this year, Leah was discharged. We were told she’d need regular checkups for the rest of her life, but she’s almost back to her normal self.
She has much less energy these days, though, but she’s trying so hard to stay positive.
After months off school, she’s finally managed to return full time and is now working towards getting her GCSE’S.
Now Leah and I have started fundraising for the Children’s Heart Surgery Fund that supports children and adults born with congenital heart disease.
After everything Leah has been through, I’m so proud of her for wanting to give something back.
She no longer has her braces on – something I’m more than happy about.
Her teeth are straight now, but they’re a constant reminder of how close she came to losing her life.
I want other parents to know Leah’s story so they might spot the symptoms of endocarditis in their own children.
What happened to my girl was extremely rare.
But it happened to us, and another family might not be so lucky.
How had braces made her so ill?