Case Study

Sam Dunstan and his sister Neisha

When Sam was five months old, he developed a high temperature, a raised soft spot on his head, and was crying a lot. Sam’s parents took him to the hospital where doctors said that he was just suffering from a virus and gave him some painkillers and sent him home. Two days later, when Sam’s condition failed to improve, his parents took him to their local hospital. Again, the doctors said it was just a virus and sent them home.

After the whole family had another sleepless night due to Sam’s continuous crying, his parents took him to hospital for the third time. While they were waiting to be seen, Sam started to have convulsions. The hospital, however, was very full so it took many hours for an intensive care bed to be made available for Sam.

Sam was finally admitted and he continued to have severe fits before being intubated. Tests determined that he was suffering from pneumococcal meningitis. Sam spent the next two weeks on life support, and after another two weeks in the hospital, he was able to go home.

The disease, however, had left a lasting impact on Sam. He was no longer responding to sound and had lost all movement on the left side of his body caused by brain damage on the right side of his brain. For the next six months, Sam was unresponsive and barely moved. After Sam came home from the hospital, his dad stopped working so that he could spend the next several months providing the constant care Sam needed.

Slowly and with the help of physical therapy, movement on Sam’s left side started coming back, and he started to walk when he was two years old. Because his left leg hasn’t grown as quickly as his right, Sam now walks with a built up shoe, and, at eight years old, he has learned to ride a bike. Sam was also left profoundly deaf from the meningitis. Damage to his inner ear also affected his balance which causes him to fall over a lot. Sam has had cochlear implants in both ears to get a sense of sound and goes to a special school for deaf children.

Sam’s parents have had a constant battle to get Sam the care he needs. Both parents had to reduce their hours to work part time until Sam went to preschool in order to look after him. They had to fight to even get Sam into the special school that could meet his needs, and now drive him one hour each way to the school every day. Sam’s future holds many uncertainties due to the disabilities caused by meningitis.

In 2006, the pneumococcal vaccine became part of the routine immunization program in the UK. Sam’s parents are delighted about this; they know through personal experience and through their reading that pneumococcal meningitis is difficult to diagnose and believe that prevention is the best way of ensuring other families won’t have to go through what they’ve been through.

Read more case studies...

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Stories and photographs of the case studies are courtesy of the families and children with permission to PneumoADIP for use in educational and non-commerical purposes only. Reproduction or translation of the case studies, requires explicit, prior authorization in writing. Applications and enquiries should be addressed to pneuadip@jhsph.edu.