Matthews' third admittance within the week to the hospital was the most challenging. Through the night Matthew became quite ill again. He was hitting and in a lot of pain.
After calling the NHS24 again, they advised that the out of hours Dr would come out and assess Matthew, however when they called, they advised to get an ambulance out.
When the ambulance turned up they would not see Matthew because he was hitting out. He was in a lot of pain.
Later that Morning i managed to contact the GP, who called straight through to the hospital and arranged an ambulance to take us back over. Again the ambulance was over 3 hours in getting to us. When they turned up they drove us back to the hospital and we were sent straight up to a ward.
Matthew went down to get an xray along with the security men because he was hitting out. The results of the x-ray were indicating something was not right, and again Matthew was sent to theater, firstly to get a CT scan. The Ct Scan Showed on this occasion the bowel obstructed and the only way of dealing with this was to rest so Matthew was again admitted to intensive Care.
This is where major problems started. Matthew contracted Sepsis, His lungs collapsed on a number of occasions, then when he came off the ventilator he ended up taking Tonic Clonic Seizures followed by a Cardiac Arrest. He had to be shocked.
I was in the corner of the room while this was happening, and it was the most horrific experience any parent could ever see their child going through. The Drs managed to stabilize Matthew and put him back on the ventilator.
A few Days later we tried again to take him off, but Matthew really struggled and his oxygen levels were below 80%. I stayed with him that night, and around 3am it was decided to put Matthew back on the ventilator again. This was very early hours of Friday Morning. Further tests were done to make sure things were ok, and came back ok.
On the Monday Matthew was not quite ready to come off the ventilator, however he managed to pull the tube out, and from this point on he made considerable progress. By the end of the week we were transferred to a ward, and a plan for an MDT meeting with the professionals in the community was arranged to talk about the support needed when Matthew got home. Because Matthew had spent 6 weeks in intensive care, he was very weak, and unable to walk. Matthew came home on 9th October, and made considerable progress when he got home. He never really got back to his baseline until after Christmas. The support I had is a completely different story, but the bottom line is yet again I was left struggling and expected to cope with Matthew on my own. It was very Challenging and hard work, which resulted in myself hurting my back and having to go onto very strong painkillers..