A mum has described her terror and helplessness after her baby son contracted Covid and was rushed to hospital.
Leah Whyte’s 18-month-old son Logan became very poorly a few weeks ago, was struck down by a fever, and was violently sick.
Concerned, Miss Whyte phoned NHS 24 who advised them to take him through to the Royal Aberdeen Children’s Hospital (RACH).
When there, the doctors presumed he was suffering from a bacterial infection but still gave him a Covid test.
After they returned back to their home in Fraserburgh, Miss Whyte was contacted by the hospital who told her he was suffering from the virus.
This came as a bit of a shock to the family, as Logan only exhibited one of the main symptoms, a fever.
Miss Whyte said: “I was honestly terrified, me and my partner Nathan, we were terrified, you are sitting there watching him and you just feel helpless.
“Me and my partner both had Covid, and we’d rather have taken it again so that he didn’t have it.
“I’ve seen someone take convulsions before and it is not nice, let alone it being my child, it was just really scary but we are thankful for the nurses and doctors who made it a little bit easier.”
The initial symptoms
Miss Whyte, 23, now wants to raise awareness about the little-talked about Covid symptoms in children, which she says are different from the ones seen most-often in adults.
Logan had a fever, discoloured skin, and started being violently sick on Wednesday, May 5 and was rushed to hospital where he was kept overnight before being released the next day under strict observation.
He seemed brighter the next day, but was violently sick once again on Wednesday night, and had a high temperature of 39.6.
Logan was also lethargic, was crying as if he was in pain, and had a rash behind his ears, on his stomach, and back.
Once again, he was rushed to hospital, with doctors there worried “his body wasn’t coping with Covid and he might take a seizure”
He was watched overnight, with the windows left open, fans put on and he was hooked up to monitors to make sure his body temperature dropped.
Logan was allowed to go home on Friday afternoon but had to be closely monitored.
Miss Whyte described what symptoms other parents should look out for.
She said: “Look out for their skin colour, his skin was very discoloured, you then had the fatigue, the rash, the vomiting, the violently being sick.
“He had like a moaning cry, like a painful one, like he was sore, but where he was sore we don’t know.
“He kept holding his head and rubbing his head and stuff so maybe it was a headache, I honestly don’t know.
The main symptoms of Covid
- a high temperature – this means you feel hot to touch on your chest or back (you do not need to measure your temperature)
- a new, continuous cough – this means coughing a lot for more than an hour, or 3 or more coughing episodes in 24 hours (if you usually have a cough, it may be worse than usual)
- a loss or change to your sense of smell or taste – this means you’ve noticed you cannot smell or taste anything, or things smell or taste different to normal
“But at the moment, symptoms for adults and children are coughs, loss of taste and smell, and a fever, Logan only had one of those and he was really ill so I think parents need to be aware of this.
“If their skin looks funny get it checked, if their hands or feet are cold, if their body is hot, get it checked.
“His feet were honestly like two blocks of ice, they were checking his circulation and things constantly.
“Logan is only 18-months-old so he can’t tell me if he’s got a headache or if he can still taste or smell so it is like a guessing game almost and we just have to help him as much as we can do.”
Logan’s recovery
A doctor at RACH took a keen interest in Logan’s condition after seeing his positive Covid test as he had seen the same symptoms in other cases at the hospital.
Miss Whyte, who works as an administrator at her partner Nathan Davie’s landscaping business, revealed that initially, the hospital staff thought it was a bacterial infection due to a “lack of Covid symptoms.”
Logan has now almost fully recovered from the virus but is still feeling the after-effects as he is tiring easily.
She thanked the hospital staff for all their support and said they did the “best they could.”
Severe Covid symptoms in children are rare, as evidenced by what a doctor told Miss Whyte at the RACH.
She added: “The doctor said that you don’t hear about very young children getting it, let alone being hospitalised with it.
“You hear about breakouts in schools but they are either asymptomatic or they’ve got very little symptoms, maybe a cough or a slight fever or things.
“But not to that extent of which Logan was poorly, if we didn’t act the way we did, getting him into hospital then the outcome could have been different if he did take a seizure or if we didn’t have that help there.”