A UK mom warned that “coronavirus is not a joke” after her “perfectly healthy” 5-year-old son caught the bug — and was in so much pain he asked her if he was “going to die.”
Lauren Fulbrook, 30, of Worcestershire, posted about her son Alfie’s experience in a now-viral Facebook post Saturday.
“I’ve had to watch my 5yr old son go from having all the energy in the world to not moving, not eating, hardly drinking or urinating,” Fulbrook wrote. “I watched him hallucinating and crying from the headache, being taken to hospital by ambulance to be put in isolation pods and be swabbed for the virus and confirmed positive. He lay in the hospital bed and asked me if he was going to die – as a mother that is heartbreaking.”
“His blood sugar levels were only 3.7, his respiratory rate was 18-20 and his heart rate was 180,” Fulbrook wrote. “The sweat was pouring out of him but he was shivering, he was panting for breath and he had photophobia.”
Lauren Fulbrook and son AlfieFacebook
In a post that is no longer visible, Fulbrook detailed how Alfie first began to feel sick after attending a swimming lesson last week.
“He started off sounding husky last Monday and I put it down to swallowing too much chlorine from his swimming lesson that day,” she wrote, according to Metro UK. “Then he got a bark-like cough and it worsened throughout Tuesday, then his temperature suddenly kicked in Tuesday night and it shot straight to 38.4 [just over 101 degrees Fahrenheit], so I had to keep him off school.”
By Thursday, his temperature soared even higher — and he stopped eating and barely drank anything. So she called 111, the number for the UK’s National Health Service.
“They sent an ambulance out in the morning, but they said that the hospital was so busy they couldn’t take him in,” she wrote. “They got his temperature down and said if it went back up or he got worse to ring 999.”
Things did get worse in a matter of hours, his mom said.
“Later that evening he was vomiting, hallucinating, crying, holding his head saying it felt like it was going to explode and his eyes were hurting, so the ambulance came out and said we had to go back in,” she wrote.
They arrived at Worcester Hospital, where Alfie was swabbed and tested for COVID-19 — and the results came back positive. Lauren, who also had a cough, was allowed to stay by her son’s side in an isolation unit, according to Metro.
They stayed at the hospital until Friday evening — when they were allowed to return home under strict isolation restrictions.
Fulbrook emphasized that young children do not have “invincibility” from the virus — and can suffer severe symptoms even without underlying health conditions.
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She warned the public to follow government officials’ directions to stay home and practice social distancing.
“Coronavirus is NOT a joke,” she wrote. “Please stop brushing it under the carpet and putting not only your own lives at risk but everyone else’s just because you want to go to the pub, or to a restaurant or think you need 7 packs of 24 toilet rolls- god knows why. As a COVID-19 positive household I’ve seen the effects it has.”
“As his mom and not being able to do anything for him has been one of the worst experiences of my life,” she continued. “So please, just stay in for a little while, so what if you can’t do all your normal things, the sooner everybody does social distancing, the sooner it will be over. I am not posting this for attention or sympathy, as I could of done that the day he got sick, I just want people to stay safe. Please think of your health and others.”
