A mother has told how her family’s lives changed over night when her son developed life-threatening sepsis at the age of five.
Archie, from Wigan, Greater Manchester, was diagnosed with meningitis B which developed into sepsis, external and he spent five days in a coma in 2018.
He was admitted to the paediatric intensive care unit at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital, where he received specialist care and rehabilitation before being discharged two weeks later.
His mother Kate said her son’s illness “changed our lives overnight” and seeing him “so seriously unwell and fighting for his life was the most frightening time we have ever experienced as a family”.
Sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to infection anywhere in the body, where, instead of fighting the bacteria or virus that is making you ill, the immune system turns on itself, damaging internal organs and potentially causing death.
Now aged 13, Archie continues to receive care at the hospital, attending for regular check-ups, undergoing operations, and receiving physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
His family have since been fundraising for the past eight years to give back to the team who saved his life, raising more than £14,000 for the hospital.