A girl was left fighting for her life after ‘chickenpox’ turned out to be a reaction to Covid-19 that she did not know she had.
On the evening of Saturday, 12 December, Millie Denvers, 6, became ill shortly after three other children in her class confirmed having chickenpox.
Her mom said Millie had a few spots and appeared pale, to begin with, but soon after, with a temperature of 39.9 degrees, she started vomiting and heating up.
She was sleepy until Monday and did not eat, but her temperature was normal. She was still hospitalized, crying in pain every night.
The mother named Elizabeth Denver, 36 said she became nervous that the spots she felt were chickenpox was not blistering, and called her GP on Tuesday morning. She was then encouraged to phone an ambulance, and when a paramedic rang back, she was told to take little Millie to the hospital, as the ambulance wait would be longer.
At around noon, Millie was admitted to Worthing Hospital and moved to Southampton Hospital at around 9 pm on Tuesday, December 15, in an induced coma.
For two days, she stayed in a coma.
Worthing hospital staff told Elizabeth and dad, Glen Denver, 40, that Millie had a disorder called Pims TS, a Covid-19 reaction that she must have had no signs a few weeks ago. Elizabeth said: “I was really freaking out.”
“My mum is a nurse, and when I phoned her from the hospital to tell her what was happening she started crying, then I knew things were really serious.
“Before they put her in the coma Glen asked if she could die, and the nurse said it wasn’t looking good but couldn’t actually say.
“We had no idea she had carried Covid.
“Until she got sick on Saturday 12 she had been completely normal, and she’s a really active little girl.
“She had been going to school and doing everything she usually did.”All her symptoms were consistent with chickenpox, one of her sisters vomits whenever she has a temperature, but when the spots didn’t start blistering it worried me.
“She was in so much pain in the car you couldn’t touch her.
“I had to carry her into the hospital and hold her up because she had gone all floppy.”
Initially, Elizabeth clarified that workers at Worthing Hospital could not make sense of Millie’s symptoms.
Shortly before they arrived at the hospital, her tongue had turned a thick white color, which is normally associated with a throat infection, but her throat was normal.
Blood checks showed that Millie’s liver and kidneys were failing, and within a few hours of arriving, she was on fluids. Elizabeth said: “At first they could see that she had an infection somewhere but they couldn’t work it out.
“They hadn’t seen this before.
“The Pims ts attacks all the organs and bone marrow, her kidneys were very damaged.
“Only 5% of children who carry Covid get Pims ts.
“Her heart rate was really high and they said South Hampton hospital were coming to collect her, to put her to sleep to give her organs a rest and help her body recover, and transfer her there, that’s when I called Glen to come.
“When they transferred her she was asleep, with tubes everywhere, and strapped to a trolley.
“My own heart was beating so fast and I felt sick, I couldn’t lose my little baby. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.
“I wasn’t allowed to travel in the ambulance with her because of Covid, I just couldn’t deal with it, I needed to be with her.”Elizabeth stayed in South Hampton for eight days while Millie recovered and Glen looked after Millie’s sisters Elsie, 9, and Felicity, 12 at their home in Steyning, West Sussex.
By Thursday night, as they decided to wake her, Millie was able to breathe independently, but her kidneys were already failing, and she did not wake properly.
On Friday, she was transferred to a high dependency facility, to a ward on Saturday, then back to Worthing on the next Tuesday evening, 22 December.
Millie was home for Christmas, on Wednesday 23rd, and has recovered quickly and fully with the help of physiotherapy.
Elizabeth said: “It was a heartbreaking relief to hear her laughing with her sisters on Christmas Eve.”
Source: Mirror