- When Juliana’s three-year-old son, Beauden, went for a bike ride around the campsite, he returned nursing a scraped right knee.
- Strangely, the next day Beauden woke up with a temperate and refused to walk.
- Results showed Beauden was battling an aggressive infection that was quickly spreading through his body.
- To save his life, docs had to amputate his legs – but brave Beauden is now thriving with his prosthetics.
Here Juliana tells her story in her own words.
Are we there yet?’ our kids, Brianna, then 10, Brigitte, five, and Beauden, three, chimed from the back seat.
My hubby Brian, then 45, the kids and I were on a six-hour drive, and excited to meet up with our friends and their two children at a campsite for the weekend.
While we set up camp, our mates took the kids to explore.
Returning an hour later, Beauden was nursing a scraped right knee.
‘I’m really tired, mama.’
‘Mama, I fell off my bike,’ he whimpered.
Brian cleaned his grazed knee with antiseptic spray and popped on a bandaid.
‘Good as new,’ I smiled.
Jumping up, he rushed to join his sisters in a game of soccer.
Finishing dinner at 7pm though, Beaudie was ready to turn in early.
‘I’m really tired, Mama,’ he said, rubbing his eyes.
The next morning, Beauden woke up with a temperature.
And he couldn’t keep any food down.
He spent the day resting in the motorhome.
‘It will be a miracle if he survives the night.’
Leaving the door open, I checked on him every half hour and kept his fever at bay with medication.
Strangely, Beauden refused to walk and asked me to carry him to and from the bathroom.
By the next morning, Beauden was breathing rapidly, his little body was piping hot and his right knee was swollen.
‘There’s a children’s hospital less than 10 minutes away.
You need to get him there,’ a nurse on the urgent care hotline said.
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that can develop quickly if an infection, such as one from a graze, cut, or wound, spreads through the body. When left untreated, sepsis can cause the immune system to overreact, leading to widespread inflammation. This inflammation can disrupt blood flow, particularly to the limbs, causing tissue damage. In severe cases, sepsis can progress to septic shock, where blood pressure drops critically low, and the risk of losing limbs increases. Understanding how sepsis can start from something as minor as a graze is crucial for early detection and treatment to prevent limb loss.
How can a graze or a skinned knee cause sepsis?
So we raced our boy to Emergency.
It was October 2020, and Covid restrictions meant only one of us could be with Beauden, so Brian waited in the car.
Inside, I gave my boy one last kiss before he was whisked away for tests.
Three hours later, results showed that Beauden was battling an unusually aggressive staph infection.
His toes and ankles have little purple blotches on them.’
Horrifyingly, as a result of the infection our toddler had developed sepsis and toxic shock syndrome.
His body was shutting down.
‘It will be a miracle if he survives the night,’ a doctor said, adding that if we’d waited even three more hours to bring him in, he’d already be dead.
‘Just 48 hours ago Beauden was happy and healthy,’ I sobbed to Brian.
As Beaudie was so unwell, we’d both been allowed in.
Our boy deteriorated quickly, and was so sick he couldn’t be moved to theatre.
So he had emergency surgery in his room to locate the source of the infection in his right leg.
Doctors thought it was likely Beauden had caught the infection when he fell off his bike and skinned his knee.
Put in an induced coma, our little boy was being pumped full of antibiotics.
We’re going to have to amputate.’
‘His toes and ankles have little purple blotches on them,’ I fretted.
The infection was quickly spreading through Beauden’s legs.
All night, medical staff worked tirelessly to keep our boy alive while we watched on with fear.
Thankfully our baby boy made it through the night.
Moving into the Ronald McDonald House nearby the next day, each night Brian and I took turns to be at Beauden’s bedside.
Meanwhile, our friends drove the motorhome and girls back to our place, where family and friends cared for them in our home.
‘Beauden’s legs are really sick,’ we explained to the girls on video call.
After two weeks in a coma, our strong boy woke up and we told him the same thing.
Beauden was so sad, he didn’t say anything, but battled on as the infection spread to his arms.
‘I’ve got this!’
He went back under the knife every few days, as surgeons tried to flush out the infection.
But the purple blotches on his arms and legs kept spreading and began to turn black.
Thankfully doctors were able to control the infection in Beauden’s arms.
But it wasn’t good news for his legs.
‘We’re going to have to amputate,’ a doctor said a month later, before Beauden was whisked in for the six-hour surgery.
Sadly, two and a half of our boy’s left fingers also fell off, which the doctor said sometimes happens to the dead part of the limb.
‘He’s alive and that’s all that matters,’ Brian reminded me as we grieved the life we thought our son would have.
‘Your legs were really sick, so doctors had to take the sick parts away to save your life,’ we told Beaudie gently, when he came to and pulled off the sheets to find his legs were gone.
Our poor sad boy looked so down.
Brave Beau worked with therapists to regain movement in his severely scarred hands, and learn how to use a wheelchair.
His smile as we celebrated each win was priceless.
‘I’ve got this!’ he’d grin.
After two and a half months in hospital and 18 surgeries, we got the green light to take our boy home just before Christmas.
‘Welcome home!’ the girls gushed as they ran over to their brother.
That March, little Beau was fitted with his first prosthetic legs.
Putting on the legs he giggled, ‘Watch me,’ as he took his first steps.
Three years on, Beauden, now six, is the human version of sunshine!
While he still does physical therapy twice a week, he’s back to being his fun silly self.
Beau’s zest for life is infectious.
He loves playing sport and running, zooming around with a special set of prosthetic running blades.
And while he has moments of missing his legs, he’s never down for too long.
Our boy is a survivor.
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