Terrifying True-life
When medics asked a strange question about my son, I had no idea what would happen next.
Jess Shears, 33, from Darlington
With a look of determination, I watched as my son crawled around.
Our baby Albie always hit milestones early.
Now, at just six months, he was crawling across the floor and grinning proudly.
Albie was such a happy baby.
He smiled every morning when I picked him up from his cot, loved his food and was weaning easily and happily onto solids.
‘He’s a dream baby,’ friends would always joke.
And he really was.
Then, in summer 2021, Albie started to change.
He’d wake up grumpy and instead of reaching his arms out to be picked up, he’d lay there crying.
Then, he went off his food.
By the time he was 13 months old, in October 2021, he was a different baby.
He started being sick after eating.
We’d just come out of another lockdown, and I wondered if he was just picking up bugs.
But then one day, he vomited and seemed lethargic.
‘Something’s wrong,’ I told my partner Sam, 34.
So, we took him to a doctor.
‘You need to get him to A&E now,’ the doctor confirmed, taking one look at our beautiful baby boy.
Panic shot through me as we rushed him there.
What’s happening? I thought.
Doctors could see how weak and dehydrated Albie was, so he was hooked up to a drip for rehydration.
Albie had an abnormally large head
‘Has his head always been this big?’ the paediatrician asked.
At first, I thought I’d misheard.
‘Pardon?’ I said.
Normally, I’d take it as an insult, but it was such a strange question I just gaped. ‘Er, I…I don’t know,’ I replied. I looked at Albie’s head.
It did look large – but didn’t most toddlers?
Also, he’d lost some weight from being sick so his head did look large in comparison.
Sam had to stay home due to Covid rules, so I texted him.
They’re asking why his head is big…I typed.
Sam replied a few minutes later, having looked on Google.
Could be a hydrocephalus or a brain tumour…
I swallowed hard.
‘No,’ I muttered.
‘Not our Albie,’ I cried.
Then, I noticed doctors hurrying to Albie’s side.
Machines bleeped.
His heart rate was slowing.
‘We need to do a scan,’ they said.
So, Albie was sent for an emergency CT scan.
I was allowed in the room while
Albie lay still in the huge machine.
It seemed awful seeing his tiny body in the white doughnut machine as it whirred around him.
Afterwards, I was able to go up to a room on the ward with him.
We’d been cuddling on his bed when a doctor came in.
‘You should get your partner in now,’ he said.
