After kissing her goodbye
Layla Towsey, from Gidea Park in Essex, fell ill last month and suffered a heart attack just two hours after being admitted to A and E.
Her mum, Katy Towsey, 23, took her to Queen’s Hospital, Romford, after noticing a rash on her leg.
Layla is three years old. She became very sick very fast. Her mother recalls:
“Layla was just so delirious. She was saying weird things and I knew something was wrong. We were then told it was probably meningitis. Within two hours she had stopped breathing and she’d had a heart attack.”
Layla was transferred to St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington, west London, where she was put on life support.
“Before they put her in the ambulance we were told to give her a kiss goodbye, It was an awful moment,” said Ms Towsey…
Told to say goodbye? Such a moment is worse than awful.
“She made the journey but when we got there the life support machine started beeping. I just ran off. I couldn’t cope with the fact she was about to die.”
Layla, who was diagnosed with meningitis B and meningococcal septicaemia, spent the next five days unconscious and fighting for her life in intensive care.
“We’d been preparing ourselves for bad news as the life support machine was keeping her alive,” Ms Towsey said.
“Even when doctors took her off life support and reduced the drugs she was on, we didn’t know how badly disabled she would be.
But the wonders of the human body and mind and spirit never cease, and never cease to amaze.
Little Layla began, quietly, to sing. She was singing ‘Mamma Mia’.
Layla – who Ms Towsey describes as a “miracle” – learned the words to Mamma Mia after seeing the film starring Meryl Streep.
“It’s definitely one of her favourite songs, she’s seen the film and loves it,” Ms Towsey said.
The little girl has now recovered, and is a poster child for the cause of curing meningitis. And never giving up hope.
