ABSTRACT
THE CASE This is a difficult story to tell you. Our son Tommy had to let go of life after just 18 months. Until 5 days before his untimely passing in the ICU, he had been healthy as can be. During his last days he was surrounded by us, his parents, but also by a legion of healthcare professionals: our GP, several junior doctors, a radiologist, paediatricians, surgeons, anaesthetists, critical care physicians, a neurologist and a pathologist. In the end our little boy succumbed to a serious salmonella infection that had spread into his brain. Medical literature, we have been told, suggests this clinical course rarely occurs and, if it does, the chances the patient will survive are extremely slim. Especially if the patient is an infant.
