A mother who lost her five-year-old daughter to a strep infection in March is hoping to raise awareness about the infection, reports RTE.
Kate Collum, from Strokestown, Co. Roscommon, lived a full life before losing her battle with a bacterial infection three months ago.
“Kate was born with Down syndrome but she was always very well, and she was never sick a day in her life. She was never in hospital and we never had to worry about her health. This came completely out of the blue,” explains her mother Claire, reports RTE.
Like most five-year-olds, Kate was a huge fan of Peppa Pig. She loved ice cream and bubbles.
She enjoyed being outside in his cage and loved to run after the sheep on the family farm.
“Kate filled up every room she went into, and you can see in all the pictures, every picture, she’s beaming. She was the life and soul of everything and was the centre of our world,” Claire said, reports RTE.
Kate loved her brothers, elder Matthew and younger Daniel.
“We were a family of five and we were very happy. Kate loved to be at home. All she ever wanted was to be at home. Everywhere we went she’d have a good time, but she wanted to go home. She was happy at home, playing with her brothers. We had a very normal happy life but that has changed a lot,” Claire said, reports RTE.
In March of this year, Kate fell ill and Claire decided to call an ambulance.
She said she felt something was wrong so she called and they were both taken to Sligo University Hospital.
“She was at home here on the Wednesday and she wasn’t herself. She was a little bit off, and I was keeping an eye on her. She had a little bit of a temperature and into Wednesday evening, I felt that there was something more to it. It seemed to be affecting her a bit more. So quite quickly, we made the decision. We need to ring an ambulance,” she said, reports RTE.
Claire added: “I didn’t realise how quick things would deteriorate. Things became more serious, and it became a fight for Kate’s life. Kate fought very hard all night and she had a team around her that second night and that team fought so hard for Kate as well and if that was enough, she would still be here. She was a very strong little girl and she had worked hard all her life and she was so strong and determined and that just shone through that night. I am so proud of how hard she did fight that night to stay with us but it just wasn’t to be, and it was too much for her little body and she had to go off to heaven,” reports RTE.
She added: “So Kate had Strep A and if you don’t get antibiotics and if it’s affecting you like it was affecting Kate it gets more severe and it becomes invasive and that means it gets into parts of the body that it’s not supposed to be and that’s when it becomes really really severe and very quickly it turns into sepsis. I suppose what I really want to say is that Strep A is not rare. It’s very, very common. Anybody can have it, and it’s a sore throat, it’s scarlet fever. So many children have it and so many people have it. What is rare is that it’s not diagnosed and it’s even more rare that it turns into invasive Group A Strep. Time is key here, there’s no second chance and if you want to save a life, you get treatment quick, you get antibiotics and you get them quick and the quicker you get them, the better the outcome. I want parents to remember there are no second chances. Keep Kate’s Strep A in your mind, keep Kate in your mind because she was full of beans and full of life. She was never sick a day in her life and this came and took her life and took it very quickly so there’s no time to waste,” reports RTE.
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