CADEN JONES, AGE ONE

WHEN one-year-old Caden Jones was admitted to hospital after suddenly falling ill in March 2014, doctors reassured his parents it was just a chest infection.

But when they reached the ward, his mother Caroline Williams noticed a bruise-like mark on his neck. Another doctor was called, by which time there was another tiny red mark on his arm.

‘ He said Caden should be treated for meningitis as a precaution,’ recalls Caroline, a 34year- old NHS care assistant. ‘That terrified me. No parent wants to hear that.’

The words were especially hard, given that they were talking about the mischievous little boy she thought she’d never have, having struggled to conceive because of polycystic ovary syndrome.

Caden was put on antibiotics and left in a darkened room. But a few minutes later, another doctor went in and switched the lights on. ‘In just five minutes, the “bruising” had spread to all over his forehead,’ recalls Caroline, who lives in Tredegar, Wales, with her partner Phil Jones. ‘That’s when everything went crazy.’

Caden was rushed to theatre so doctors could give him a tube to help him breathe. ‘We kept saying, “He’s strong, he’ll be all right”,’ says Caroline, ‘but then the doctor said “I’m so sorry, but he’s not going to make it.”

‘We went to see him while they were still doing CPR. We kept saying: “Stay with us, Caden, breathe for us” — but then he was gone. We cried and cried. We’d lost our little miracle boy.’

Caroline gave birth to her second son, Kelyn, in December 2014: ‘At first we didn’t know how to feel, but then we realised he’d been sent to us by his big brother.’ Interviews by Beth Hale and Katie Strick