During the night Liam had a violent temperature and his arm was
swelling and turning red at a rapid rate. IN the early hours of
the morning of the 10th sept we returned back to the A&E dept,
more x-rays were done showing up still no breakages by this time
Liam had very bad diahorrea and vomiting.
By 10am they had admitted Liam onto the ward saying they thought
he might have what they called 'compartment syndrome.' During just
a few hours Liam became semi conscious only waking and asking for
a drink which he was drinking bottle after bottle and the arm was
extremely swollen and turning like a purplish colour.
At this point Liam was put onto an intravenous drip as he was
becoming dehydrated. Later in the afternoon we were told a specialist
team from the Heath Hospital in Cardiff were on there way to transfer
Liam.
Within four hours of them arriving we were told Liam was now
on full life support and fully sedated and that all his vital organs
were failing. We were told at this point that he was probably not
going to get through this and there was no more room for Liam to
get any sicker.
We arrived at PICU in Cardiff at !am on Sunday 11th, by 4am we
were told they were taking Liam to theatre and making a cut from
his wrist to just above the elbow and to cut away some tissues.
They were then sent to the microbiologist for analysing and by
the afternoon, Liam was deteriorating very fast. His kidneys had
failed so he was put on dialysis, he was being given over 18 drugs
and the ventilator was breathing for him.
Toxic shock and septacemia had set in too. By 7pm that evening
Liam was being rushed back to theatre and we were told Liam had
Necrotising Fasciitis. We signed the forms for them to amputate
Liam's left arm above his elbow we had no choice. We we told Liam
might not even make the op.
The next 3 weeks became a blur just praying that our little boy
would be strong enough to pull through this horrific journey and
he did, but with complications. Liam had severe muscle spasticity
so was transferred to Morriston Hospital in Swansea so that they
could do a closure on his wound, as for 3 weeks, it had been left
with just a loose flap of skin, so that every day they could take
down this dressing to make sure that all was ok.
Liam had another two operations whilst in Morriston, one to do
the closure and the second to put botox injections into Liams legs
and right arm and to put them into plaster cast splints so that
the physios could start to do Liams intensive physio which would
be ten days after the botox injections.
After nearly five weeks in 3 different hospitals we were allowed
to bring Liam home unable to walk or talk and not even communicating
with anyone we knew that this was going to be another tough time
for Liam. By the middle of November Liam had started walking and
was talking again( well you can just imagine how this felt to us
as a family.)
By the end of December we started to notice a deteriation in
Liam's right hand side of his body, he now swings his right leg
out and his foot is turned inwards.
At out recent appointment Liam has been diagnosed with dystonia
and cerebal palsy due to Liam having to be resuscitated during
his illness with Necrotising Fasciitis.
Its now 23rd jan 2006 and Liam is unable to do lots of things
that he used to do but when we wake every morning to his happy
smiling face and cheerful personality is such a great reward to
have him here with us, after being through such an horrific journey
he has been on in the last four months.
We will keep you all posted as to Liams progress and the many
hospital appointments that we are attending.
Love and best wishes to you all,
Nicola Vaile x
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