Jon and Becki took on the 50km trek around the Peak District on the 8 and 9 July.
Jon told us ” Our beautiful daughter Ruby was born on 9th Nov 2018. The birth had some complications, but we were overjoyed by her arrival. We then began recuperating as a new family on the maternity ward and began preparing for discharge.
12 hours after her birth an experienced Midwife Assistant took a good close look at Ruby as we had concerns about her feeding and thank god she did. She Immediately knew something wasn’t quite right, noticing that Ruby had developed mottling of the skin and had a high temperature. She was taken down to NICU straight away for ‘tests’ and to be watched closely. At first you assume these tests will be routine and that she’d return within a few hours, but we were soon to realise the extent of the issue.
We waited anxiously by her incubator, receiving regular updates on her condition and after several hours we were told that they were going to do a lumbar puncture to test for group B Strep infection. This was the first time we’d ever heard of GBS and from this moment we began researching for hours on end, initially using the Group B Strep Support website & content to educate ourselves on the infection, it’s causes, it’s remedies, and the potential consequences.
We then discovered Ruby had tested positive for the infection, and that it had likely travelled to the meninges around her brain. This meant it was very likely she had contracted both sepsis & meningitis as a consequence of the GBS infection. At this point our world began falling apart, the kind of news that shatters any new parents. We had been told that Ruby’s condition was serious, but we remained positive as our little fighter was so far responding well to her early treatment.
Fortunately, Ruby continued to respond to the general antibiotics she was on and spent a week in NICU before being moved into a children’s ward. She remained in hospital for three weeks in total and was given the strongest course of antibiotics to treat her meningitis.
The trek was very tough with plenty of blisters to act as painful memories, but so glad we did it and proud of our achievement.”
If you would like to show your support for Jon and Becki you can do so by visiting their JustGiving page, which so far has raised an incredible £1375 https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ruby-arnott
