Ben has Guillan-Barre Syndrome

by Rosie Peters

Today I'm back at school. Can't wait to see all my mates again. Seems like I've been ill for ages but it's just three months. It started when I had a bad throat and kept going really hot. Sweat kept pouring down my neck. Then I got the squits. I spent almost a whole day on the bog. The doctor said I'd got a bug of some sort and it would pass. He told me to drink more. I seemed to get better, then in a couple of weeks I was ill again. Not the squits. It was my legs. They felt a bit funny at first. Then in a few days they were all tingly and didn't feel right. And my left hip hurt so much I had to grab hold of the furniture when I walked.

Mum took me to the surgery. Doctor Strong had a good look at me, especially my legs. He moved them about. That really hurt one time and I yelled. I couldn't help it. I didn't cry, but I nearly did. Then he got this hammer thing and tapped my knees and ankles with it. I don't know why though. Nothing happened. Doctor said I needed to go to hospital so that a specialist could see me. The hospital's near where I live so Mum went and got my pyjamas and things while Dad and I waited in the car. Soon I was in bed in the children's ward. There were some other kids my age but I don't know what was wrong with them.

I got worse ever so soon. The next day my arms felt weird and didn't want to move, so a nurse had to help me wash. Then I wet myself. I've never done that since I was a baby.

Later at dinner, my swallowing didn't work and something got stuck in my throat. I coughed and coughed. Mum and Dad were by my bed. Dad kept bashing me on the back. He kept shouting "Bring it up son! Bring it up!" He got really red in the face. Then Mum started to cry and she called for the nurse. A big blob of carrot shot out my mouth and landed on the floor. I couldn't reach down to pick it up. I tried to say sorry but the words wouldn't come out, just gurgles. The nurse was very kind to me. She wasn't cross one bit.

Next I remember I was rushed off on a trolley to a different room where there were a few beds with people in and there were lots of nurses and doctors. I could see machines with dials and switches. And there were wires and tubes and pipes everywhere. I was lifted onto a bed and I couldn't move properly, just a little bit.

Two doctors and a nurse came to see me. They said they had to put a little needle into my back to get some fluid to test. I had to curl up like a ball at the edge of the bed while they did it. The nurse helped me get in the right place because I couldn't move very well on my own. They were ever so quick. Next a doctor put a bag of water with medicine in, hanging on a pole by my bed. It all went into a vein in my arm. Everyone said I was very brave. Mum and Dad bought me a Spiderman to keep on the bed with me

When the consultant, Doctor Hopper came round, she told my mum and dad and me that I had some thing called Guillain-Barre syndrome which is rare because only about one and a half thousand people a year in the United Kingdom get it.

"Why has Ben got it?" Dad asked.

She explained that it was generally a reaction to a virus. It usually happens a bit after someone has been ill with a bad throat, or flu or diarrhoea. She said something called the immune system gets upset and causes damage to nerve endings and that's what made my legs go all tingly and why I got ill. Doctor Hopper said some people get it so bad they have to go on a breathing machine. I'm glad I didn't. And some people have problems moving their eyes. I didn't have that either.

Some of the medicine that made me better was made of antibodies, and plasma which is yellow stuff in blood. I'm glad Mum and Dad are blood donors because someone like them has helped make me well again. I don't have to take any medicine now I'm at home again, and I can walk without holding on to the furniture. I don't wet the bed any more either. Thank goodness! That was awful. Doctor Hopper says it would be very unlikely for me to get any more problems with my legs like before because I've got over the illness quite quickly. Some people take years to get better though. I guess I'm just lucky.