After reading Bobbins devastating loss of her beutifull son to menigitis i thought i would start a thread on this awfull illness.I have posted before about my dd who is now 4 1/2 when she was born 8 wks prem she was very healthy infact she was ready to come home at 13 days old.On day 14 i arrived to see her , her nurse said she had refused her last two feeds but they wernt to worried, i held her for a while, at this point she was not attatched to any monitors as she didnt need them, but i noticed she was breathing normally the nurse looked at her and said she was fine.I then changed her nappy and noticed she didnt look "right" she looked really yellow, but not jaundiced yellow a really strange colour i asked for a doctor to see her and one came straight away and the look on her face said it all.My little girl was rushed into icu and withen 10 minutes was attatced to a life support machine and was hanging on to her life by a thread.I was told they thought it was meningitis but as dd was so ill they could not do a lumber puncture untill she was stable.That night we were woken up and told my darling dd had meningitis and it was unlikly she would make it through the night.We had her babtised and spent the night holding her hand and willing her to live. She did get stronger and she did pull through but this awfull illness has scared her for life, she now has hydrocephalus, cp, she is blind in one eye and her development is severly delayed, . The one thing that scares me so much is that if she was at home i would have not have known, she had no apparant symptoms no rash no raging temp , the one thing i have learnt though is a a mother i know my child best and if im worried about anything however small it seems i see a doctor, i mean thats what their there for, thats why they get paid, I hope i havent upset Bobbin by writing this i just thought this illness needs to be discussed and parents need to know all the facts.