She Swallowed A Battery
Cheryl’s toddler was left fighting for her life with internal burns KACIE SPENT SIX WEEKS IN HOSPITAL FOR MORE TREATMENT ACID BURNED THROUGH HER STOMACH
My two-year-old daughter Kacie climbed onto my lap for a cuddle.
‘What’s wrong, sweetie?’ I asked as she buried her head in my chest.
She had not been her usual bubbly self all morning.
Later that day, she started throwing up and having bad diarrhoea. I thought she just had a tummy bug.
Our GP agreed, and prescribed a course of antibiotics. But, a few days on, I found Kacie struggling to breathe. Trying not to panic, I rushed her straight to Derby Hospital.
‘It’s probably pneumonia,’ a consultant told me.
Kacie was taken for an X-ray.
Sick with worry, I stayed with my little girl all night as we waited for the results.
Then, at 3am, a doctor came to speak to me.
‘Kacie’s swallowed a battery,’ she explained.
It was a small button battery, the size of a 10p piece.
My mind raced. How on earth had she got her little mitts on one of those batteries? And then it clicked… There were a couple of lithium cell batteries in a kitchen drawer at home. I’d had a few spares left over from when I changed the one on my set of car keys.
I’d thought that they were tucked safely out of harm’s way.
But I realised that Kacie must have somehow got the drawer open when my back was turned and mistaken them for sweets.
Utterly distraught, I couldn’t hold it together. ‘Is she going to be OK?’ I sobbed. I knew swallowing a battery was dangerous, and I worried about the damage it might do to her poor insides. Kacie soon underwent a short procedure to remove the battery, and doctors believed she would be OK. ‘You had a lucky escape, young lady,’ I told her, so relieved she was OK. Once we were back at home, I watched Kacie, her sister Layla, five, and brother Joshua,three, like a hawk. A single mum, I had to have eyes in the back of my head. ‘You mustn’t put strange things in your mouth,’ I lectured them all. Then, two weeks later, Kacie suddenly started throwing up blood
with clots in it. Panic set in. I rushed her straight to hospital, from where she was transferred to Birmingham Children’s Hospital for specialist care.
There, tests revealed that the acid from the battery had burned through her stomach and damaged arteries at the bottom of her back and oesophagus.
Kacie needed emergency repair surgery. But it was so risky, there was a 40 per cent chance that Kacie wouldn’t survive the operation. And, even if she did, there was a 50 per cent chance she could be paralysed from the waist down.
Without the surgery, though, Kacie could die from her internal injuries caused by the battery.
‘Just do what you have to do to save my baby,’ I begged doctors.
The six and a half hours that she was in surgery were complete torture for me. When I got the news that she was OK, I felt like I could breathe again.
Not only had my little girl survived – incredibly, she hadn’t been paralysed.
‘I can’t thank you enough,’ I told her surgeon, Dr Oliver Gee.
Kacie recovered amazingly well following the operation.
In the weeks after, she learned to walk again and was on a liquid feed.
Finally, after six weeks, she was allowed home.
She’s able to eat normally again now, but she doesn’t have much of an appetite which I hope will change in time.
She’s having physiotherapy now, as the damage to her lower back has caused her legs to bow.
And she needs more checks on her oesophagus, as there’s a chance it may have narrowed. Kacie is so lucky the battery acid didn’t burn her insides completely, though. I’ve since been told by the hospital that she’s one of only two children in the world to have survived swallowing a button battery. I find the thought of how close I actually came to losing my baby absolutely terrifying.
Hopefully, other parents can learn from Kacie’s story and keep all batteries locked away out of reach of their children.
Kacie is one of the lucky ones, but the next child might not be so fortunate.
I find the thought of how close I came to losing her absolutely terrifying.
Hopefully, other parents can learn from Kacie’s story: Keep all batteries locked away and well out of reach of little fingers.
Kacie is one of the lucky ones, but the next child might not be so fortunate.
Kacie started throwing up blood