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For six years, 32-year-old Lizzie Allen has been trying to have a child. She experienced 16 miscarriages before her beautiful daughter, Fleur-Rose Allen, was finally born.
Over the next 15 months, Allen would dote over her daughter, beaming over Fleur-Rose’s health and loving how she was just learning to “toddl[e]” around and laugh.
One morning, Fleur-Rose woke up crying with a slight temperature.
Allen thought her daughter had simply caught a bug, and simply gave Fleur-Rose some water and medication.
It wasn’t long until Fleur-Rose’s condition quickly deteriorated.
Soon after Allen gave her daughter medication, a seizure overtook Fleur-Rose, and her parents called for an ambulance to take her to the hospital. It was there that they realized her fever had risen to 102.2°F.
On the way to the hospital, Fleur-Rose fell in and out of consciousness, but she seemed to stabilize by the time they arrived at the hospital and even felt well enough to play with some of the toys at the hospital.
Around lunchtime, Fleur-Rose’s condition began to waver again. Her x-rays were all clear, but she began to vomit and refused to eat, even though she happily “sat on her daddy Matt’s knee, grinning away,” Allen recalled.
As Allen attempted to feed her daughter some mashed potato, she noticed the first red mark on her daughter’s neck – but it vanished before a nurse or doctor could check it for themselves.
Finally, at 5:30pm, the Allen family heard more concrete details about their daughter’s condition. Fleur-Rose’s doctors were talking about getting a water sample from the girl, to check for meningitis – but it was too late.
Barely half an hour later, Fleur-Rose had to be rushed to the resuscitation unit. There, she suffered from four cardiac arrests and was overcome with the same rash as before.
Her doctors tried to save her, but there was little to be done.
By 11:04pm, Fleur-Rose had passed away of meningitis.
Her parents had never realized their daughter was ill.
Now, even in the midst of their anguish, the Allen family is working to raise awareness of meningitis symptoms in children who are too young to communicate their pains with their parents.
“I think every child who is admitted to hospital with similar symptoms should automatically have a meningitis check. A child's life isn't a lottery,” Allen said.
Since Fleur-Rose's death, Allen has raised £12,000 for Meningitis Now in her daughter's name: “I want people to remember her.”
