He was admitted and discharged from the hospital multiple times. (Representative Image)
An eight-year-old, Jaxon Bentley, boy “almost died” after contracting salmonella from eggs he ate during a stay at a five-star resort in Turkey. His mother, Natalie Parr, stated that her son has been left “a shell of what he used to be” after suffering kidney failure due to the bacteria, as per a report in Metro UK.
The family was on a week-long holiday in June last year when he was rushed to the hospital with severe stomach cramps, diarrhoea, and a high temperature on the third day of the trip. He was able to fly back to the UK and was soon taken to a clinic.
It was later determined that two strains of salmonella, one of which can be deadly and cause neurological damage, were the cause of his symptoms. The boy was admitted and discharged from the hospital multiple times over several weeks. According to his mother, this traumatized him and he was unable to make complete recovery even six months later.
“Jaxon is back at home and while we’ve tried to go back to a normal life, we’re not there yet. He still cannot eat properly without pain. A once lively, outgoing boy went on holiday to Turkey came back a shell of what he used to be and the change is simply heart-breaking. My son has been replaced by a quiet, subdued boy, still traumatised by the experience, with night terrors meaning he’s afraid to sleep as well as afraid to eat. The thought of any other family going through this is too much to think about, so we knew we had to speak out on this,” the mother said.
She added, “If we can help prevent others going through the hell we are going through, that will be some comfort. For us, all we really want is the boy who went away on holiday to come back to us.” Her son was reliant on a wheelchair due to weakness and antibiotics failed to help him.
A number of medical procedures were conducted “including a lumbar puncture and two brain scans under general anaesthetic”. He was discharged again but was unable to gain weight and has been extremely weak. Regular blood tests are still being conducted to monitor his health.
The 36-year-old mother continued, “We’d all been looking forward so much to this holiday but due to Jaxon’s illness, it’s now one we’ll remember forever for all the wrong reasons. He became so very ill, so quickly, that we knew it was more than just a typical upset stomach. It was frightening to have to see him in hospital and it was horrible to see what he was going through and see him becoming visibly weaker before our eyes.”
She added, “We knew we had to try to get him to a hospital at home if we possibly could and the flight home was the stuff of nightmares. He was so visibly ill and in pain that passengers on the plane cried seeing him in that condition. No one would believe someone could be so ill from a gastric illness or that the effects could be so serious. You feel so helpless when you can’t do anything for your own child and I wish it could have been me instead of him”