It was Monday, the day after Logan turned 8 months old, when I arrived home from dropping my Mum at the airport, to hear that Logan had a fever and had been asleep for longer than usual.

With this not being our first kid, we knew that kids got fevers and some Panadol should do the trick. The next day (Tuesday) was pretty normal with Logan looking fine and participating in our outings to music lessons for his big sister and even the beach, but we were still giving Logan regular Panadol which was keeping his fever under control.

On Tuesday night, Logan had a large vomit which prompted me to take him to Perth Children’s Hospital’s Emergency Department. 

After spending 7 hours at PCH and the doctors asking a number of questions and doing some checks that didn’t prompt any alarm bells, we were told that it was most likely that Logan had gastro and that we could stay in ED or go home and watch how he went and if things didn’t get better after 5 days, to come back.

The thought of dealing with gastro in an ED room didn’t seem like an ideal location so we went home. We were given the usual piece of paper that gives you signs to look out for, and we set home to try to get through what we were expecting with the gastro diagnosis. 

Wednesday was pretty stressful as we spent the day just watching and waiting and giving Panadol/Nurofen as discussed with PCH doctors. Some time during the night, Logan started making a weird grunting noise which we put down to stomach ache and just tried to get through the night and hope that the day would be better.

On the 12th of May 2022 (Thursday morning) my husband noticed that Logan had a twitch in his arm and he wasn’t quite himself. We decided to take Logan into PCH even though I wasn’t sure what they could do because our 7 hour wait two nights before hadn’t left me with a lot of confidence in what could be done at the hospital before the 5 days that had been mentioned. 

The car ride into PCH had been a bit stressful as Logan started looking really sick but we still had in our minds that it must have just been the gastro and he was probably just dehydrated or something as he hadn’t eaten in a day. It had only been about 36 hours since the vomit on Tuesday night.

With the hospital’s Covid rules in place, my husband was told that he couldn’t come in with us so Logan and I started the triage process. 

The next couple of seconds were frightening and we are so grateful for the nurse that came out to take us inside. She took one look at Logan, took him from me and moved incredibly quickly through to the resuscitation room.

What felt like something out of an episode of a medical drama then kicked in, and the room filled with doctors and nurses all doing something different and all working very quickly. Then one doctor told me to call Martin back to the hospital, thankfully he hadn’t gone far. We ran behind the hospital bed as Logan was taken off to have a CT scan and we took a significant sigh of relief when we asked about the results and not much was said.

We felt like it was all going to be OK and that we had just been lucky that we got there before things could be worse. Well, it turned out that we weren’t lucky. Far from it. A new scan a couple days later would reveal the true extent of the damage even though we weren’t sure yet what had caused it as the tests needed time to diagnose.

We received the diagnosis of pneumococcal meningitis, but Logan had already been put on a number of treatments to cover a range of possibilities. We had friends and family tell us that meningitis was curable and Logan would be ok, so we figured we would probably be in hospital for 2 weeks and life would be ok after that. 

Fast forward 5 months of living with our family split between home and PCH, 5 brain operations, two rounds of negative pressure hydrocephalus, over 30 MRIs, not being able to hold Logan without some significant planning and help from nurses and his first birthday being celebrated in hospital.

Ironically, we were discharged on the 5 October which is World Meningitis Day.

Logan left the hospital with a discharge letter that read like a horror novel. Cerebral Palsy Level 3 even though we were yet to see Logan move, Epilepsy, Dystonia, Cerebral Visual Impairment, deaf in one ear, gallstones and a nasogastric tube for feeding as Logan cannot swallow safely.

The last 3 years have been incredibly difficult and a step forward is often followed by steps backwards. Logan is now classified as a Level 5 CP and he has more than 10 seizures a day even though he is on numerous medications, has an implant to help with epilepsy and on a very strict keto diet. The little boy with his beautiful smile and blue eyes is still there, just not how we ever could have imagined and sometimes that smile takes a bit of effort to muster up. 

There are so many “should’ve would’ve could’ves” that still haunt our days. We have had people point fingers as to what we did wrong but none of that will change what happened. We realise that we were lucky just to be able to walk out of hospital with Logan as not many kids in Logan’s state get that second chance.

Life is forever different but the support from the hospital staff and other agencies has meant that we have been able to create our own normal even though we are living most people’s version of a nightmare.  So now we focus on giving our family a life that brings contentment as even aiming for a happy life sometimes seems an impossible goal. 

We’re sharing Logan’s story to remind parents that their instincts are vital and that unfortunately, doctors are human, Panadol and Nurofen often mask the true extent of an illness and that babies are incredibly tricky with showing illness as they seem to be able to bounce back until such time as it is too late. 

I often think about the chat we had with the GP a couple months before Logan got ill where the doctor gave the usual pre vaccination speech about how the Pneumococcal vaccine doesn’t cover all strands of Pneumococcal Meningitis and I had even mentioned to the doctor that getting one of the other strands would be like winning the lottery of bad luck. Well, it’s true. And unfortunately, winning this lottery is easier than winning the good kind.

As told by Logan’s mum Beth