A decade on, mum who nearly died of swine flu
And her ‘baby’ is healthy too
HE is the boisterous little boy she thought she might not live to see.
But ten years after contracting a virulent case of swine flu while pregnant, Sharon Muirhead is in the best of health – and her nine-yearold son Spencer is thriving at primary school.
Plunged into a coma, she was airlifted to Sweden for specialist treatment as the infection ravaged her lungs.
But now, almost a decade on, she is a busy mother looking after her football-mad son and his elder sister Kieva.
Speaking at her home in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, Mrs Muirhead, now 39, said: ‘Sometimes for no particular reason I just sit and think about how lucky I was to survive and come out of it with a healthy baby.
‘But, then again, when I came out of it I didn’t know where I was or what was going on. It was so close.’
It was 2009 when Mrs Muirhead fell ill with back pain while she was five months pregnant. She was treated for appendicitis at Crosshouse Hospital, in Kilmarnock, before being diagnosed with swine flu in July.
With her condition deteriorating, doctors decided she needed a bypass procedure known as extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO).
The machine takes over lung function and adds oxygen to the blood, boosting recovery and helping medication to work.
None of the five dedicated ECMO beds in the UK was available when Mrs Muirhead was struck down, prompting Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm to offer a lifeline. There, she was treated by a 28-strong team of specialist medics.
She spent two weeks on the machine and was given a tracheotomy to help her breathing. Doctors told her family she was so ill they were taking things ‘minute to minute’ as they battled to save her life and that of her baby.
However, she was declared well enough to return to Scotland at the end of August.
In October, she gave birth to Spencer, a healthy 6lb 14oz baby.
The creative and sporty youngster is a popular pupil at Mayfield Primary in Saltcoats, which he attends with his 11-yearold sister.
His mother said: ‘We’re still wary of absolutely everything from sniffles to colds. He’s quite a carrier for things, but he gets it mild then passes it on to Kieva and the rest of us get it worse.’
She admitted her own traumatic experience of swine flu complications had left her fearful of illness or disease and uneasy in medical settings.
She said: ‘My dad was in hospital and one of the nurses was wearing a mask and it gave me a panic.
‘I do get scared if there’s an epidemic and I don’t like visiting hospitals in case I catch anything.
‘One good thing to come out of what happened to me is I now get the flu jab every year, so that’s some extra protection.’
Mrs Muirhead married her husband Brian, a 39-year-old railway worker, in August 2013 and is a stay-at-home mother.
The family plan to visit Sweden one day so they can meet the medical staff who saved the lives of mother and son.
Mrs Muirhead said: ‘We would love to go back to the hospital and see the staff. We did keep in touch with emails and pictures for a while.
‘My consultant was in Scotland for a conference and visited us when Spencer was only a few weeks old.
‘We’d have to work it around Spencer as well, because it’s quite a long journey and he gets quite anxious about that. Hopefully we’ll manage next year.’
Mrs Muirhead added: ‘We’ve been extremely lucky. There’s not many people who survived serious swine flu complications without being left with major issues.
‘It was a long and hard recovery but it was worth it.
‘Spencer is so loving, friendly, funny and crazy. He’s really just a typical wee boy but maybe a bit more spoiled than he’s supposed to be.’
‘Wary of catching anything’