Megan Mary Pratt

Thanks everyone who leaves tributes and picture and candles for megan they a very much appreciated!

Megan Mary Pratt
29.01.01
31.03.02.
14 months old.
Shettleston, Glasgow.
Sister to Toni, Callum,Stuart and Scott.
Passed away due to having leukemia diagnoised at 11 weeks old and then got meningitis two days after her first birthday and passed away peacefully on 31st March 2002 Easter sunday.


I will remember forever the night i went into labour with you! I remember my labour pains started at 11.15pm i was sitting with your big sister Toni and i said to her this is the last time its going to be me and you i knew you would be there for the next morning. Your granny had went on holiday that week and was due back on the Monday. I phoned your great auntie Margaret she came with me to the hospital and so did your auntie christine they where both with me when you came into the world at 6.31 that morning. I had an uneventful pregancy with you you came into the world at 38 weeks weighing a healthy 6pound15 ounces. You were born in Glasgow Rottenrow Maternity you had a low temperture when you were born they kept us both in overnight to keep an eye on it you were wrapped up in loads of blankets and they put a wee blue woolie hat on you and everyone kept saying my wee boy was gorgus lol we where discharged next day although they did let your granny in to see you at midnight on the monday. we went home thats when you stopped taking your feeds you wouldn't sleep either only way to get you to sleep was to hold you and i slept sitting up i kept taking you to doctors and hospital they kept telling me there was nothing wrong with you just a virus. one doctor told me a smiling baby was not a sick baby little did she know!! On Monday 8th of may you had been stayin with your granny overnight as you still didn't sleep or hardly ate. it was on this day your lump appeared on your head i thought toni had done it and i took you to the doctor he said a small haematoma nothing to worry about i was to bring you back into two weeks if it didn't change or right away if it did change he didn't want to send you up for an xray as you where so young thing went by as they been and on the wednesday you went see through i could see your veins everywhere i phone the health visitor she went and spoke to the dr who seen you and i was told to take you straight to the hospital as the lump had been abnormal. we phoned your granny to take us to the hospital and uncle colin came with us. when we arrived i should of guessed something was seriously wrong cause we were taken straight through. the nurse said everything was probably coming off your cold as you always had a cold i thought nothing more of it. you were examined by a junior doctor and she asked me if you had always had a large liver i told her no i didn't know what she was talking bout she went and got a senior doctor who then sent you for a chest xray and me being nosey read the slip he gave me for the xray people uncle colin was carrying you round to xray with me and i was reading the slip and it said looking for infantile leukemia never did cancer ever enter my thoughts even as i read your granny had left us up there as she to go to work so when we got back round to the short stay ward uncle colin sat with you and i phoned granny and told her what i read she said it will just be something they are trying to rule just a test. i went back another doctor came to see you she said she said one of the doctors had found you hard to examine. then came the bombshell that was to change my life forever she told me they thought you had tumors and what she was trying to telling me is that there is tumours they can cure and ones they can't! i broke down she said she wanted to run a blood test uncle colin told me to go and get a drink and calm down time out to get myself together. i phoned your granny at her work and i told her to get up to the hospital and told her what the doctor had told me she was there within 20 mins by that time they told me you were bring moved to schellian ward and a consultant was waiting for me going up with you. it was half past 9 at night. when we got up there there was a team of doctors waiting for you they had to put drips in both your hands to try and thin your blood as it was too thick they wanted to do that before speaking to me. they left us for ten minutes and i startd reading signs on the walls in your hospital room about children on chemotherapy and i turned to your granny and i said shes got cancer and your granny trying to so the same as me and blank it out said no this is the only place they could find you a bed. we were taken into a side room and i knew this wasn't good the doctor said you had leukemia but they didn't know what type they didn't expect you to last the next 48 hrs they had to thin your blood and give you blood but if a blood clot formed there would be nothing they could do! i was a mess your granny ran out and left me in there.the next 48 hours went by we had you chrisitened they got your blood thinned and you got the blood you needed. the first part of cheno was 6 weeks of steriods and you went from not eating to we couldn't keep you going you were drinking 24 6 ounce bottles a day lol they kept running out of your milk. they wouldn't let me give you dinners as they said you were too young but you had been on them for three weeks be4 this happened to try and get more milk into you. after the first 6 weeks went by in daze the doctor came into say you were in remission it was a great feeling they would't be letting you home but you were in remission. the nest day they decided to let you out on pass for two hours we went shopping lol went back and everything was fine the next day it was 4 hrs so we went home for while and then the day you seemed as if you were getting the cold so we weren't allowed out that day by ten o'clock that night you were on some oxygen but not a lot midnight they turned it up a wee bit more by half 5 the next morning you could hardly breathe you were transfered to intensive care you left the ward at 6 to go down we didn't get to see you again until ten that morning and i was told both your lungs had collasped you were on a ventialtor to help your breathing you had caught paraflu. the next days went by much the same one day we were sitting by your bed when machines started beeping your heart was beating to fast they done an xray and the next thing we knew a doctor was standing with a scalpol telling us to get out it was air. Both your lungs had burst you had to go on a special ventilator to shake the air into you instead of the one inflating you lungs it was scary! they told me then you wouldn't survive the night you had a 5% chance of making it through the night. i phoned everyone up but i knew deep in my heart that it wasn't going to happen i knew it wasn't your time to go. Everything the doctors told me would happen to you never happened you always did the opposite! they said if you survived you would be on the special ventilator for a week. you were on it for 24hrs 3 days later you only need cpat and they allowed you to wake up i will always remember that for the rest of my life. they never told me they were taking you off the ventilator they done it durning the night and i came in that morning and they had you sitting up and you were sitting puffing away like a steam train with a the biggest smile upon your face i will never forget it. you were back on the ward the next day they gave a two weeks rest then came the sceond block of chemo which was the worst this made your hair fall out made you sick and gave you a sore bum! it was horrendus i wished i could do it for you you did it tho got through thats! when dietians weren't about i'd give cornettos you loved them as well as the bars of dairy milk you liked to melt in your hand a put everywhere lol they never did let you out again tho. from the july to october. on halloween they came in and said you were getting home the next day for a week then they needed the room that night i had your stuff packed and out of there in half hour be4 they changed there minds. we had just got home and in the door i out you in your bouncy chair and started emptying your bags i turned by back for one second and you pulled out your feeding tube. i had to phone into the ward and had to take you back in to get put back down again lucky we got ronan he sneaked us under the cameras and repassed the tube and sneaked us back out again. it was from ronan you learned your first word and you would call everyone bugger! if you didn't think you were getting enough attention you would do your wee cough so people would talk to you!!!!!! you had to be back in on bonfire night to get your last block of chemo i took you in and this block wasn't as bad as the second one you did it and got a few infections as usual it was around this time you started bangin your head off the cot and screaming you kept punching yourself in the head. i asked doctors if it was possible you were taking migraines as well get them and i was told no way you where too young it was your back teeth coming in. this continued at times your soft spot would swell up and again i was told it was nothing to worry about on christmas eve we hoped to get you home but your still had no counts and was in strict isolation so that ruled that out on xmas day they let you home for 6 hrs it was great to see you and your big sister opening your presents together the two of yous had special bond it was strange to see it was like yous were twins. on the 4th of january they let you home this was it we were finally homeward bound you were to attend daycare for the first time that week we had never got this far! over the weekend you were fine when they dicharged you on the friday you had loose stools which you had had all the way through treatment. on the monday we got up and ready to back to the clinic you had your feed through your pump. we waitied for two hours in clinic to be seen in his time you had taken a temperture and were being sick and had the usual loose stools by the time a doctor seen you you had started to dehydrate they started to blame me blaming your loose stools you were admited again little did i know that you would never go home again. things continued as they were for the next couple of weeks they had you on antibiotics and you weren't responding as they would like two days be4 your first birthday dr gibson came to see me she told me they had been watching for weeks and your cancer was on its way back and you would need a bonemarrow transplant you could of scraped me off the floor i was so shocked i never expected that. the day after your birthday you didn't seem right i don't know what it was you just didn't seem right u kept crying the doc came in and said you were taking a temper tantrum which you never done! a nurse went over the doctors head and got another doctor in she couldn't see what was wrong with you and precribed paracetmal.ibrufoen and dihydracodine and they were to give you them all together which they done and it made no difference then i had a thought i phoned you granda and asking him to bring in Toni he did then minute she walked in that door she climbed up on the chair beside you cot and stroked your face saying there there baby i'm here! you stopped crying instantly you wanted your big sister even the nurses couldn't believe it your sister was two at the time. i took Toni home that night and your granny stayed with you overnight. the next morning your granny phoned me to see the a doctor who hadn't seen you for a while had seen you that morning and she thought you had meningtis and i headed straight up! never in a million years would i thought you could of got two life threatening illness one was bad enough but two! they done a lumberpuncture that morning and it came back at teatime that night yes you had meningitis! they put you in isolation and arranged for an mri scan to be done the next day we got the results at teatime the next night you had numerous abcesses all over your brain and down your brainstem they arranged for a nurologist to see you that night. he seen the scans first then came in and seen you he couldn't believe the things that you were able to do things he said you shouldn't be doing with the abcesses on your brain stem. his words were it was remarkable! he did tell me that night that the abcesses had been there for a long time but denied this the next day they changed all your drugs but by now you had started to take fits at one point they told me you were blind. You had a big fit one morning that lasted for hours no matter what they gave you they couldn't get you out of it! the drugs they gave you knocked you out for days. it was decided that day that there was a trial drug they could try and if that didn't work they would keep you as comfortable as possible. they put in a external shunt after a day of having that you woke up back the baby you were be4 all this happened laughing smiling calling people bugger and you had learned bye as well. it was great to have you back instead of feeling so helpless. this was not to be the trail drugs didn't work. you started bleeding through the drain and going down hill you didn't like to be held or touched apart from when Toni touched you it seemed to calm you. on sunday the 31st march you breathing changed you had been breathing to fast over the weekend it just slowed down back to normal you could be held as well granny was holding you when i walked the nurse said thats this was it but it could take hours but i knew deep down you would choose the opposite that night when i had stayed up with you all night i told you not to wait for us for you to go when you felt ready granny said the same that morning. i knew it was going to be quick i phoned in all the family and went back in and granny said to hold you but i couldn't do it! i knew you were in safe arms when you were with your gran she wasn't there to see you come into the world but she was there to see and hold you when you left this world, i left and when downstairs but i had to go back you pulled me back when i walked back in you had just took your last breath. You have a part of me with you and you will always be with me forever and ever in my heart.