This 13-year-old boy nearly died from a brain infection. But his mom kept pushing for care
CBC
Paxton Clarke, 13, sits upright in his bed as he yawns repeatedly and softly explains that he doesn't remember an entire week of August.
While memories such as squeaking chairs come back to him in fragments, his mother, Jennifer Weatherbie, recalls every painful moment of how he dipped in and out of consciousness and nearly died.
She's now seeking an apology from Nova Scotia Health and the Colchester East Hants Health Centre after Paxton was sent home by two doctors in Truro, only to end up in emergency brain surgery at the IWK Health Centre in Halifax.
"For them to basically tell us to leave with a child that can't even walk or say more than a couple of words and is hallucinating … that's not normal, in my opinion," said Weatherbie.
Paxton had been feeling poorly in July and the situation gradually worsened. At a walk-in clinic in Truro on Aug. 6, a doctor diagnosed Paxton with cluster migraines.
Weatherbie wasn't convinced. She took her son to a crowded emergency department at the Colchester East Hants Health Centre on the following day, but left after two hours when people around her said they had already been there for nine hours or more.
Things escalated on Aug. 9. Paxton was unconscious and needed to be transported by ambulance to the emergency department in Truro. After seven hours, he was once again diagnosed with cluster migraines and told to rest at home.
As it turned out, Paxton had a strain of bacteria called streptococcus anginosus that developed into an infection and spread to his brain, according to Weatherbie. She said as soon as the IWK team saw her son's MRI scans on Aug. 12, they immediately jumped into action.
"The doctors were standing there waiting for me and they were like, 'It's surgery or death,"" she said.
Weatherbie's gut instinct had prompted her to call the IWK after leaving the Truro hospital.
She said on top of the fact Paxton could barely walk or talk, he was vomiting, his forehead was protruding and his tongue was black and swollen. He also had a seizure seven hours earlier, which had never happened to him before.
"I carried him back out to the car, called the IWK and they said bring him straight down. He was in a CT scan under five minutes of being [there]," said Weatherbie.
She said a medical investigation was immediately launched by the IWK team over that weekend. She said her son had a chest X-ray in Truro, but no other scans. While Paxton had blood work done there, Weatherbie said she was told they would have to wait 24 hours for the results.
She doesn't think his case was taken seriously in Truro, which is why she has filed a complaint with Nova Scotia Health.
This story is part of CBC Health's Second Opinion, a weekly analysis of health and medical science news emailed to subscribers on Saturday mornings. If you haven't subscribed yet, you can do that by clicking here.
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