JOHNNY NORMAL SURVIVES CRITICAL ILLNESS 2014
In March 2014 I was admitted to hospital with a high temperature and vomiting. This was diagnosed by doctors at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham as Influenza A. My breathing became difficult and I had to be ventilated. Pneumonia to both lungs followed along with Bocavirus, liver failure and kidney failure. I was in the Intensive Care Unit and in bad way. I was put into an induced coma and a Tracheotomy was carried out as my oxygen intake was poor.
My wife and children were told I would not survive the next two hours.The only path available was a very risky one, and even then, the chances of survival were slim… After a complicated assessment, the ECMO team at Leicester's Glenfield Hospital agreed to take me in as an emergency patient and try their best to stabilise me within their Intensive Care Unit.
The next few weeks saw me intubated, ventilated, on kidney dialysis, fed through my nose, consecutive blood transfusions, and two sessions of ECMO. I suffered a cardiac arrest, being revived by CPR… and then a stroke… but the incredible ECMO team under the direction of Dr Richard Porter never gave up, even in the darkest of hours... and without any shadow of doubt these amazing people brought me from the brink of death.
When stabilised I was transferred to Intensive Care at Warwick Hospital, and finally to Leamington Rehab Hospital where they helped me regain use of my limbs, regain some of the weight I had lost, rebuild muscle mass and I had to learn to walk again.
Everyone involved who helped me survive this terrible 6 month ordeal has been fantastic and I am so unbelievably grateful to them. The ECMO treatment I received at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester was crucial in keeping me alive and has saved the lives of so many adults, children and babies who, without this, would certainly not be alive today.
Please, please help me and my family raise some money to help fund the lifesaving treatment that Leicester's Specialist Hospitals provide for people like me who had little or no hope of survival. Please give whatever you can through