[ad_1]
It was 30 seconds of my life that I must have aged about ten years. My daughter had tried to climb the stairs, and as she took the last steps down on her butt, there was a thud and a scream. A normal part of learning for a 20 month old.
I picked her up and wiped her tears away, but then the most unimaginable and unexpected happened: When Ivy tried to breathe for her next moan, she passed out. Her head fell back and she fell into my arms.
I called his name, tried in vain for him to respond, and screamed for help. I can still hear the creepy and creepy sound of a woman screaming ‘My baby! My baby! “, Which later occurred to me, must have been my own voice.
I ran upstairs cradling her and looked at my husband. I’ve never seen him so scared. We both thought that our beautiful daughter must be dead.
However, in a few moments I had returned and was hugging my husband’s neck, panting, a miracle on Easter Monday.
We rushed her to A&E at King’s College Hospital, at which time she was sobbing uncontrollably with great relief that she would now receive medical attention.
I must have seemed upset because, for now, my little girl was approaching the nurses to show them her car, her temperature was fine, and the consultant said that maybe it was just one of those things that happened to babies from time to time. .
They gave us lunch, kept us for three hours of observation, and sent us home.
It was only the next day that Ivy developed a temperature and a cough that she wished she had asked to do a Covid-19 test.
For weeks before, my son had also been experiencing symptoms of the virus that he would not describe as “mild”. And when, last week, NHS leaders issued an urgent national alert to doctors, warning of a more serious “coronavirus-related syndrome” in children, I began to wonder: Could it have been so?
I know that other families have seen their children fall with unexpected and sometimes frightening symptoms in the past few weeks before recovering. Are children at greater risk than what we have been told so far?
The alert for the new syndrome came from doctors in London and other parts of the United Kingdom who noticed a sudden increase in children admitted to intensive care with rashes, seizures, heart inflammation and stomach pain.
The suggestion is that in very rare cases, Covid-19 could cause a child’s immune system to overreact as it struggles to fight the virus. This can lead to general inflammation of the blood vessels similar to Kawasaki disease, a rare condition that generally affects children under the age of five. It can cause damage to internal organs.
Given what we had experienced, I began to investigate. At first, the statistics were encouraging. The children seemed largely intact from the virus. Except for some tragic cases: last month, a five-year-old boy became the UK’s youngest victim; the NHS guide shows that children, if they do get coronavirus, seem to experience very mild symptoms.
The chances that Ivy had been in danger seemed slim.
So far, children account for only one to five percent of diagnosed Covid-19 cases worldwide. They mostly show milder signs of the disease, and deaths among those under the age of ten are rare. Great Ormond Street experts say that about half of children have a fever, 40 percent have a cough, and less than 10 percent have gastrointestinal symptoms.
But then came the news last week that children could not only contract the virus, but in some rare cases, the consequences are dire. For these children, the immune system, which remains immature until adolescence, can become their worst enemy.
Professor Russell Viner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), told me that UK doctors were the first to detect the alarming, but rare, phenomenon and have since discussed their findings with Italian and Spanish doctors. they realize in hindsight. that they have also seen such cases.
“We have also seen this in adults, although not this exact phenomenon,” said Professor Viner. ‘The link to Covid-19 is not yet tested, but we think it is very likely. However, it is important to realize that this is not a new mutation of the bug or that something we are concerned about is going to escalate. It’s an incredibly rare subset, and we know how to deal with it. “
He added: ‘These findings are testament to the way our doctors and researchers work together. It’s just what we’re good at. “
There have been 20 cases in the UK, according to the RCPCH, but without any signs or symptoms.
Dr. Mike Linney, RCPCH pediatrician and registrar, said: ‘All of these children were extremely ill, with features that suggested sepsis, such as persistently high temperature along with rapid breathing, cold hands and feet, and drowsiness.
“The other symptoms vary greatly in different cases.”
It all rings a troubling bell to me. Not long before my daughter passed out, my five-year-old son suddenly fell ill. Ted woke up at night saying he was not “very well”. I had started coughing the day before, so, with the coronavirus in my mind, I checked its temperature. It was normal, so I was wondering if I was just having a bad dream. Unusually sticky, he grabbed my arm and said, “Mom, don’t leave me.”
In 20 minutes, her temperature skyrocketed to 40 ° C and her small body (why do kids always seem to look so much smaller when they’re wrong?) Was shaking violently. She was still clinging to me as she said over the shoulder to my husband, “Oh God, this must be” it. “
Ted vomited several times: the bathroom, his room, our room. However, within 24 hours, it seemed to almost return to its usual state. Almost. But here is the strangest thing: almost two weeks later, it was still not right and it spiraled again. This time, his fever lasted for seven days and nights and his cough had returned with a vengeance.
He complained of sharp and persistent pain in the armpit and one in the belly. He had diarrhea, hardly ate, and fell asleep sitting on the chairs. Her breathing was difficult and I went to her room every hour during the night to see how she was doing.
I made a couple of frantic calls to the GP and had a phone call with a doctor, and then, a few days later, a video call with another. Was I missing something? Tonsillitis? Appendicitis? Something that could be treated, he hoped.
Their opinion was that it was coronavirus, and they said that if his breathing worsened, he should call back or, if he was really concerned, go to the hospital.
The nature of the boomerang surprised me, but after a week of being so sick, much worse than last year’s chickenpox or his childhood case of hand, foot, and mouth disease, the color gradually returned to his cheeks.
Then, a few days after the children were sick, I also had a cough. A week in bed followed me with chest pains and a terrifying feeling that seemed to drown me despite being on solid ground.
Did we all have coronaviruses? None of us was examined, but I put money on it.
Certainly, we need to know more about how this virus affects children and, so that we can successfully get out of the blockade, how they transmit it.
My two are now completely better, thank goodness. But the biggest concern is that other parents will be lulled into a false sense of security and believe, like me, that the coronavirus is not a big problem for children. The fear is that some will not seek help when they need it.
As any good doctor will tell you, parents know their children better. You know how it looks “a little under the weather” and that it is a world of “desperately poor”.
We must also remember that there are doctors there to help. As the dedicated team at King’s College Hospital told me, “We are open to business as usual.”
