8:40am Thursday 11th March 2010
A NORTH Yorkshire furniture retailer is holding events at her store to raise awareness of meningitis – a decade after her daughter was struck down by the killer disease.
Debs Woollin, who owns Country Green, in Finkle Street, Malton, battled for months with medical staff to convince them her daughter Katie was seriously ill.
Debs, who lives at Easthorpe, said it got to the point where Katie, who was aged six at the time, had a cold every week and was hardly going to school.
She said: “It was six months after this all started that she collapsed and a doctor came out and said that she needed to go to hospital.
“They took her to Scarborough where they carried out various tests including a full body scan and found she had pneumococcal meningitis and what I thought was a runny nose was actually brain fluid.”
Katie was given antibiotics, but her mum was told to prepare for the worst.
She said: “I was told she wasn’t likely to live through the night and if she did she could be severely brain damaged.”
Katie, who is now 16, and a pupil at Malton School, did respond to treatment and after a couple of days her condition started to improve.
She said: “She has suffered some hearing loss and delay in her brain function, but she is now studying for her A-levels and wants to go to university.”
Debs said while she was in hospital with Katie she had come across the Meningitis Trust, which supports anyone affected by the disease. She said: “I can’t thank them enough for the support they gave me at that time.”
To support the charity, Debs and Katie are making decorative fairies to sell at Country Green and a coffee break will be held today, from 1pm to 5pm, when coffee or tea and cakes will be available at the shop for £1.
Ten per cent of all items sold will also be donated to the charity.
For details about the Meningitis Trust, visit meningitis-trust.org
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