Caleb Joslin
My son, Caleb, 8 years old, suffers from a rare genetic condition called haemophilia. He has a portacath for easy access to give his intravenous factor, medication to manage the haemophelia.
It was a Thursday and Caleb as usual had come home by school bus. As per our usual physiotherapy plan, it was his weekly session in the hydro pool after school. I’d taken him to do his physio and all was well. Once we got home, he had jumped into the shower while his father was cooking tea. Caleb suffers from an intellectual disability as well as ADHD, so when Caleb gets sick you know. Caleb had his shower and came to sit on the couch after he had got his PJs on. All was good with Caleb. He was his normal self, while he was talking to his dad about physio. He let out a yawn, then all of a sudden he was limp and unresponsive. His father yelled for me to come as I was in another room. I managed to wake Caleb up somewhat and while he was incoherent, he was able to respond.
Something didn’t sit right with me so I put him in his wheelchair and raced him to the GP on the next street. He would wake up somewhat and then be unresponsive. It was thought by the doctor that he was having seizures and he recommended we take him to the Royal Children’s Hospital as he is an outpatient there. As we got to the hospital, he was moved into resus. He managed to stabilise and after all the bloods were 
run, it came back as that he had staph aurius in his portacath line and his blood. (Sepsis and Children)
He was moved up to the ward around 2 am and we decided to head home for a shower and grab clothes. We live 45 minutes away, so not a quick trip home! It was past 6 am when we were driving in that we got a call to ask where we were. I explained that we were on our way in and they asked how far off are we? We had gotten up to the ward to find what would have been over 10 people in the room. While Caleb did look sick when we left him, it didn’t look like my child. They ended up having to call a MET (medical emergency team) call on Caleb as his heart rate was 165 bpm and he had a very low BP. They had to pump him full of fluids to try get his BP up, but it didn’t work. They then used noradrenaline and, at that point, it was when we had walked in.
It was a case of “he needs albumin and we have to move him to ICU right now!” It was explained to me while we were moving to ICU that Caleb had staph sepsis and he needs to be in ICU to receive albumin. He gradually became better over the next few days! After spending over 2 weeks in hospital, he was able to come home on IV antibiotics with a Baxter pump. While the whole two weeks to me now when I look back are still a blur, I realise that he was the lucky one as while at the time I knew it was serious, I don’t think I fully grasped that I may actually loose my son. Life slowly got back to normal. We were then hit with a se
cond staph infection and back in hospital on IV antibiotics. We ended up in another time – that’s when they decided to remove his portacath and give his body time to heal with no central line. Another trip followed as his veins gave up and he needed his twice weekly factor.
We eventually got another port and so far we have been issue free! After the initial episode we experience 4 reinfections and had 4 operations to get him back to the way he is with a fresh port. It still upsets me now to think that your life can be fine one minute and then all of a sudden you’re faced with losing your child.
Source: by Sarah Russell (Caleb's mother)
