Wednesday, August 09, 2006



Charlotte's Story so far...


Monday the 29th of May. After a long sleepless night of sickness, camping in the Alton Towers campsite, Charlotte took to the shower to try and sooth her headache and refresh herself. No sooner had she stepped in when she collapsed and fell into a semi-conscious, delirious state. Her friends were nearby and promptly took her to see the on-call doctor who immediately called an ambulance to the nearest hospital in Stoke-on-Trent. It wasn’t until Charlotte was inside the ambulance that the paramedics noticed red marks beginning to form on her neck. It was the trademark Meningitis rash.

She was rushed into A&E and pumped full of liquid and drugs to keep her blood pressure up and her heart beating and was placed on a ventilation machine to keep her breathing. Within hours she was unrecognisable. She was bloated to three times her normal size with 7 extra litres of water escaping from her damaged blood vessels. By the time her family arrived the doctors warned she had a 30/70 chance of surviving.

Charlotte’s fragile state continued for 10 gruelling days as day by day, doctors advised family and friends to take each hour at a time. Any one of the countless times that Charlotte’s blood pressure dropped it could have taken just minutes for her body to give up. But Charlotte is strong. And finally, on the 8th of June, she began to take a few breaths on her own and her blood pressure, heart rate and temperature began to stabilise enough for everyone to allow themselves to hope. The rash had left vast areas of dead skin, tissue and muscle, especially on her legs and around her sacral area. Her feet had no pulse and her legs and fingers were cold and steadily turning from red to black.

A CT scan showed that there had been some bleeding into the *spinal fluid* area of her brain and her reluctance to wake up suggested there could possibly be some form of brain damage. However, on the evening of Friday the 9th of June, although very disorientated and still full of pain relief and sedative drugs, Charlotte slowly began to come round and return back to herself.

At this point Charlotte was awake and breathing and it was possible to wean her off of some of the isotope drugs for her blood pressure. However, her gut, liver and kidneys were still showing no signs of regeneration and the doctors could still not find a pulse in her feet and fingers on her right hand which were steadily turning black. Also, the extra fluid which had been needed to steady her blood pressure had now begun to seep through the skin on her legs and within a day they were covered in blisters so severe, the hospital would need to treat them as 95% burns.

Because the damage to her legs would have to be treated specifically, and the fact that Charlotte was currently in a paediatric ITU which did not have the facilities to properly deal with a teenager, the decision was made to move her closer to home to Great Ormond Street Hospital in Russel Square on the 11th of June. Here she could receive specialist care for her renal failure and be nearer to her friends and family.

Within 24 hours of settling into her new environment, Charlotte’s blood pressure began to drop and her temperature yet again increased until dangerously high and it became suddenly apparent that somewhere in her extensive wounds she had become infected and was now going through a second hit of septicaemia, similar to the meningococcal bacteria she had first contracted. This obviously had devastating effects for her liver and the areas of her body which were previously beginning to heal. Charlotte was unconscious for yet another 7 days.

By this time it had been over two weeks since she was first hospitalised and since her feet and legs and fingers had been first affected. Now the outcome was looking grim as her fingers on her right hand and two fingers from her left along with all her toes, which were steadily turning black were now mummified and her legs were in a bad way. While still in intensive care in great Ormond Street a specialist burns surgeon from Broomfield hospital in Chelmsford came to perform debridement surgery on Charlotte’s legs and sacral area and advised that she was better off in the specialist burns unit in Broomfield.

2 days later, on Sunday the 23rd of June, charlotte was taken to Broomfield in a CAT mobile intensive care ambulance and placed into the burns intensive care unit. This is where she has remained for the past 7 weeks and where she will remain for the remainder of her recovery.

After the debridement surgery in Great Ormond Street, Charlotte’s legs were in some places, deprived of so much tissue and muscle that her leg bone was visible. It could now be confirmed that the bones in her feet were dead and a decision was made that to give Charlotte the best chance of mobility, they would need to amputate her legs below the knee. By this point they also knew that the fingers on her right hand were also beyond recovery and would also need to be amputated. However, her left hand made a remarkable recovery with only the very tip of her middle finger remaining black. Finally there was some good news as her kidneys started to produce urine and it seemed Charlotte would be able to begin to be able to heal her wounds.

She has been in severe pain since her amputation and then had to undergo skin grafting to apply skin to her thighs after her own skin, tissue and fat being removed in the debridement. This skin has been grafted from her stomach and chest, her back and her right arm which has left Charlotte in great discomfort and severe pain on almost every part of her body. She was then susceptible to countless numbers of infections which can greatly slow down the healing process and doctors advised that it will be at least another 8 weeks before she is able to return home.

On Sunday the 16th of July Charlotte contracted pseudomonas. This relatively harmless bug that in you or me would cause an upset stomach, took over Charlotte’s body and by Wednesday she had gone into shutdown and yet again become septic. This septicaemia, like before, was damaging every organ. In the next 4 days Charlotte condition continued to get considerably worse as her immune system showed signs of not working effectively and therefore not getting rid of the infection which was still being pumped round her body in her blood. On Saturday the 23rd Charlotte became grey and her heart traces began to look tired and her blood pressure took several dramatic drops which suggested that her heart was not effectively pumping blood around her body. The doctors told us all that it would take a miracle for her to survive and we were advised to prepare ourselves because they couldn’t see how she was going to make it through the night.


Charlotte defied all medical logic and the next day began to look better. Her colour returned to more of a pink than a grey and her heart began to regenerate. The miracle that all the doctors and nurses had said we’d need, had happened. Although, at a cost. This dramatic hit to her body had lasting effects and now Charlotte will need a colloscapy which will leave her intestines outside of her body in order for them to heal properly for the next 6 months. They also had to cut away more of the tissue and fat around her sacral area and are now worried about the condition of Charlotte’s muscle in this area, which could have detrimental effects to her quality of mobility as her strength will be severely weakened in an area which would ordinarily support most of her weight for walking. Her fingers and some of her palm on her right hand also had to be amputated as they were infected. Charlotte’s condition will now be considered unstable and very vulnerable for the next 2 to 3 weeks.

On the 5th of August, yet again we noticed a small rash developing on Charlotte’s left arm, the only part of her (apart from her face) that isn’t covered. After 3 days of watching and waiting, the doctors then discovered that it was in fact, another infection. Apparently the same one as before, pseudomonas. Charlotte appeared to be fighting it off well at first, but this morning, on the 9th of August, she is showing signs of struggling to keep the infection under control and runs a substantial risk of going into her fourth hit of septicaemia.

2 Comments:

Blogger tammi said...

I stumbled across your blog quite by accident, but was touched by Charlotte's story. What a battle she's had to fight!
My heart and prayers go out to her and her family! Hoping she makes a comeback soon....

~tammi in Georgia, USA

4:58 AM  
Blogger El Stannage said...

Hi Charlotte, Sophie, Jayne, everyone,
I am praying and sending all my love and strength to you.
Charlotte, your strength continues to astound me sweetheart.
Sophie, I haven't spoken to you since this began, what you're doing is wonderful.
I wish there were more I could do to comfort, support and help you all, know that you are always in my heart and in my thoughts.
Sending all my love to you, Eli x x x

1:24 PM  

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