Grieving couple plan Christmas Day vigil
7:20am Tuesday 16th December 2008 in Search Module By Steven Thompson
Steph Garnall and John O’Gorman with a picture of their daughter, Ellie Mai
FOR many it is a time of celebration and joy, but Christmas for one heartbroken Bolton family will only serve as a stark reminder of their loss.
Steph Gornall and John O’Gorman were looking forward to their first Christmas with their new baby daughter.
But in October, Ellie Mai died suddenly of meningitis, aged just eight weeks.
Now the young couple will spend Christmas Day laying cards and presents at the grave of their baby daughter.
The couple, from Breightmet, say it just does not feel like Christmas without her.
But they are urging people to give to the charity Meningitis UK, so that other families do not suffer the same heartbreak this Christmas.
John, aged 19, said: “It will be very hard for us. We are still devastated.
“The whole family will go to see Ellie Mai on Christmas Day. We are taking a Santa’s sack full of gifts and cards.
“We were going to buy her so many presents for Christmas. Now we just don’t feel like celebrating Christmas at all.”
Ellie Mai had shown no signs of illness in her first seven weeks at home, but when she started to suffer a high temperature, John and Steph took her straight to their GP.
She was taken by ambulance to Royal Bolton Hospital as a precaution, but once there, her condition deteriorated rapidly.
She was transferred to Pendlebury Children’s Hospital, but after a week-long battle with the disease, doctors told her distraught parents that there was nothing more they could do.
John and Steph had to make the heartbreaking decision to give consent for their baby daughter’s life support to be withdrawn.
They wept at Ellie Mai’s hospital bedside as their daughter was christened, just hours before she lost her fight for life.
The couple are now trying to raise awareness of the disease and are urging people to give whatever they can to the charity, Meningitis UK.
Steph, aged 17, said: “We don’t want any other parent to go through what we went through.
“Meningitis doesn’t have as high a profile as some other charities and we want to change that.
“People need to be aware of the symptoms and act fast.
“We took Ellie Mai to our doctor as soon as we noticed she had a temperature, but it was still too late.”
To find out more about Meningitis UK, call 0117 373 7373 or visit meningitisuk.org
