48 hours after seeing a GP for the first time, 5 week old Oliver was diagnosed in hospital with sepsis arising from meningococcal disease. His dad Cy describes the couple’s reaction. Look out for a new instalment every Monday during Sepsis Awareness Month.

Christina burst into tears, looked at me and said “We could have lost him.”

My mouth fell open and I just stood there in shock, not quite computing what I had just heard. We were then told we would be staying there for further observation and tests. They were contemplating doing a lumbar puncture to make sure he didn’t have meningitis too. 

Guilt and shame completely washed over me. How didn’t I spot it when Christina did? How come I didn’t realise something was really wrong? Why didn’t I act sooner? Did I poison him with the nasal spray? Did I give him too much? If I had acted sooner he would be ok and he wouldn’t be here in the hospital.

I felt completely responsible and helpless. My son was suffering with a life-threatening illness, and I could do nothing. I’m supposed to be Superman to him, but I couldn’t do anything except watch him go through this.

The days all sort of roll into one here: Oliver was observed every few hours and we were told he was showing signs of improvement and that they might not do the lumbar puncture as he was doing so well.

I was constantly Googling the signs of sepsis and wondering how I had missed it, wishing I had known the signs sooner. I remember watching his monitor constantly – he was a baby so naturally he would wriggle and a wire would come loose setting off the alarm that his heart rate or oxygen wasn’t being read and my anxiety would shoot through the roof.

Me and Christina lived in that hospital room all week. We would take it in turns to go home and wash the bottles, have a shower, change clothes etc. On the Sunday, Christina had gone home and I was feeding Oliver his bottle when a nurse came into our room.

“We’re going to do the lumbar puncture now, I need you to stop feeding him as he may vomit.”

I remember vividly her saying “vomit” because I immediately thought about how stressful this was going to be for him to cause such a reaction. 

I chose not to message Christina and tell her; I knew she would panic and rush back. 

I just want to say here, that my son was the one going through all this, I don’t want to lose sight of who was really suffering, but what happened next was the worst moment I’ve ever experienced.

I carried Oliver into the room and set him down on the hospital bed that seemed far too big for him.

“Ok Dad, if you’d like to go for a walk or go and grab a drink, we will collect you when we’re done.”

“I’m not leaving.”

“Mr Gregory, we don’t allow parents in the room to see this, you have to leave.”

“I know, but I won’t do anything, I’m not leaving.”

The nurse left to grab a doctor to get me out of the room.

“Come on Mr Gregory, you need to leave,” he said.

“Guys, I’m not going to cause a scene or do anything but I’m not leaving him in here. Please let me stay”

“Ok, fine.”

They told me they were going to begin so I looked away, facing the door that I came through. I heard Oliver begin to scream and I bit my lip as hard as I could.

“Talk to him, Dad, keep him calm.” the nurse said.

“Daddy’s here, Oliver,” I say “Everything’s ok baby.”

“Ok, stop.” I heard.

I turned around to see what was going on and one of the three nurses, the one holding my son, had begun to panic. Holding my 5 week old son in position was too much for her to handle, she had never done this before. So I stepped in, I asked the head nurse what needed to be done.

“He needs to be bent forward to open up his vertebrae while I put this needle between them”

“Show me how to do it.” I said.

“Mr Gregory, we can’t…”

“Just tell me what needs to be done so I can get my son out of here.”

My emotions had shut off and I became like a drill sergeant, I felt like I was completely taking over the situation. So I held him, he laid on his side and I had one hand on his nappy and one on the back of his head, I had to fold him in half until his face was in front of his knees. He screamed and screamed until his face was bright red. I remember thinking about how sore his throat must be. The pillow underneath his head was wet from him crying, I kept kissing his cheek and telling him everything was ok as I watched them draw spinal fluid from his back.

It just felt wrong.

Here I was causing my son massive discomfort while he screamed and my thought was: don’t let him go, keep him still. I just wanted to push everyone off of him, pick him up and run home, but I couldn’t.

The thoughts came back again. This is happening because of me. I didn’t recognise it early enough. What if he’s scared of me now? What if he never wants me to hold him? What if they find something in his spinal fluid? I should have got him here sooner.

I then heard the nurse telling me to rub his soft spot on his head and give him this sugar water to calm him. I panicked about letting him go but they told me it was ok to do so. He was calmer now, exhausted though.

I asked the nurse if I could pick him up? Did I have to be careful where I touched him? What if I damaged his spine? The emotions all came rushing back at once and I started crying as he fell asleep on my shoulder. 

I walked him back to our room and held him as he slept. Christina walked in with a big smile on her face only for it to drop when she saw me – she knew. She asked why I hadn’t said anything but I’m so glad I didn’t. I felt like we were here because of me and I deserved to have that memory and feel terrible. It’s messed up to think that way, I know that now, but that’s how I felt.

Christina began to cry, and I sat on the bed and started thinking about the future.

The next day, the doctor came in with the nurse to tell us Oliver didn’t have meningitis.

Because of the result of the lumbar puncture, Oliver was allowed to go home the following day. He had made a full recovery and there were no signs of any other issues.

Two out of every five sepsis cases are in children under 5. Sepsis is indiscriminate and dangerous. We need more research and we need your help to do this. Please click here to donate to Sepsis Research FEAT.

Look out for blog 3 in this series, next week.

You can listen to Cy’s story on his Words of Sepsis podcast episode here.