A couple in the UK ended up in the intensive care unit (ICU) with their six-month-old son due to a misdiagnosis that left him untreated and suffering. Charlie King and Abbie Rogers were told that their son’s ‘rattly’ breath was just a viral infection caught at a nursery when they began noticing their son Lennie having regular colds and chest infections.The parents saw their baby suffer through several months of ‘rattly breath’ and trouble breathing at night but still kept him home as their general physician repeatedly assured them that it was a viral and “nothing to worry about.”However, after six months of back and forth and consistent pain, they took him to the hospital and learned that he had a collapsed lung along with pneumonia. The baby who had just turned one needed two life-saving surgeries but went on to make a full recovery later.
“We were back and forth with the doctors for months, and after being told yet again it was just viral, we decided enough was enough and took him to Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), in November 2022,” said the father to The Mirror UK.Now, the parents are campaigning for more awareness with the dad even running the London marathon in aid of Evelina London Children’s Hospital, the one that saved their son’s life. “We put it down to the nursery where he was in contact with lots of other children.
Doctors agreed it was viral and would clear on its own, but when we took him out of nursery he was still getting ill in the same way. After six months, we said enough was enough, and took him to the hospital,” he added.“They told us, ‘You need to prepare for things to get worse before they get better’. Getting that news, it was hard to process. We were told he was the sickest child in the hospital. But he perked up quickly after his operations – and after a year of regular checks, he was signed off completely.”The Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises inclusive and multidisciplinary diagnosis while engaging patients and their families. Cases such as Lennie’s highlight how important it is to consult numerous health professionals for consistent concerns that are unable to be diagnosed yet causing pain and health loss. Visiting a hospital might seem taxing and expensive, but the medical attention can prove to be extremely beneficial in serious health complications, especially for vulnerable sections such as babies and the elderly.
