Hudson Reid, from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, was just two when a severe sickness bug led to dehydration which caused a blood clot and bleed on his brain — but he made a miraculous recovery
A mum has issued a warning after her toddler “nearly died” when a sickness bug triggered a life-threatening stroke.
Hudson Reid was just two years old when he fell ill with what mum Amber Davidson, 29, assumed was simply a sickness bug after he was vomiting and “couldn’t keep fluids down”. When Amber, though, noticed her tot’s arm was “stuck up”, his legs were “shooting out straight” and he was making “weird” noises, she rushed Hudson to hospital.
Amber says “within five minutes” Hudson had five doctors working on him attempting to resuscitate her son after he lost consciousness during the journey to the hospital. Despite a clear CT scan, Hudson remained unconscious for the next five days and an MRI revealed he had a “massive” blood clot and bleed on his brain which had triggered a stroke, reports the Daily Record.
He was rushed to Glasgow Children’s ICU the following day after a neurologist discovered the clot was caused by “one in a billion” dehydration from his sickness bug, causing his blood to thicken.
Little Hudson spent four weeks in hospital and was given blood transfusions and put on blood thinners, and despite being told he’d never “walk, talk or move again”, he was up walking within a week.
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Now seven years old, Hudson is attending school and isn’t letting “anything phase him” despite his brain being damaged from the severity of his stroke. Mum Amber reveals that the effects of the stroke “impacts him a lot” in terms of his movement – he frequently falls over and has speech difficulties, but she insists he leads “pretty much a normal life”.
Amber, a self-employed beauty therapist from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, said: “He’s a complete miracle. Even the doctors are blown away with him he’s proved everyone wrong.
“I first noticed his arm that day. He was making a noise, not a cry but just a weird noise. I videoed him and sent it to my mother-in-law to see if she had any idea what was happening and because I know it’s common for kids to have seizures so thought it might be that.
“I phoned the doctors and said I think he’s having a seizure. They said they’d get a doctor to phone me back. Before they phoned me I just looked at him and took him to the hospital. Within five minutes there were five doctors working on him. They were trying to resuscitate him – he was dying in front of us.”
Hudson fell ill in September 2021 and when Amber noticed the unusual symptoms, she sent a video to her mother-in-law and called her GP for advice – Amber says they told her a doctor would call her back.
A concerned Amber took her son to A&E, suspecting he might be having a seizure, but CT scans came back clear. He was admitted to the ward unconscious and didn’t wake up for five days, falling into a seizure each time he tried.
An MRI scan the following day revealed he had a blood clot and bleeding on the brain. Amber said: “The hospital told us there was nothing else they could do and that he was an unwell wee boy.
“The last hope was sending the videos I took to a professor in Glasgow – he’s a neurologist and says it was a one in a billion chance Hudson had dehydration from his sickness bug that caused his blood to thicken and caused the bleed on his brain.
“Hudson was rushed to Glasgow Children’s and was in the ICU having blood transfusions, blood thinners, everything to do with strokes.
“We were told Hudson wouldn’t walk, talk or move again. Within a week he was up and about. He still has a wee speech impediment and brain damage but he’s here, alive, walking and talking.”
Hudson spent four weeks in hospital recovering and required feeding through an NG tube for six months as he couldn’t eat by mouth due to the stroke affecting his oral movement.
Now, Hudson receives occupational therapy every six months, sees a dietician monthly and attends speech and language therapy weekly. He also visits hospital twice yearly for check-ups and undergoes regular blood tests and heart scans.
Amber said: “His movement is great but he does fall a lot and as he progresses is the point we’ll see how brain damaged he is going to be. We’re now at the point where other kids are progressing and Hudson is not and his brain damage is more apparent.
“We’re just taking it day by day just to see how he’s going to react. It’s just a waiting game. He’s such a sweet loving wee boy and has a heart of gold. He doesn’t let anything phase him.”
Amber is keen to raise awareness of strokes in children caused by sickness bugs, admitting she wasn’t familiar with the warning signs. I think it’s the stigma that strokes happen to older people,” she explains.
“Obviously there’s a lot of awareness of strokes with the Face, Arms, Speech thing but I didn’t think a two-year-old would be able to have a stroke which is why in my mind I never even thought that.
“Even now when I tell people my two year old has had a stroke they say ‘no way’ or ‘I didn’t know a stroke could happen to a child that age’.
“At the time the adrenaline takes over and you go into mum mode. I feel like I was probably doubting myself or thinking ‘am I overreacting?’ before I took him to the hospital. I had no awareness of how severe the situation was.
“It was only a few months after I thought ‘that actually happened, Hudson actually went through that’ but at the time I was just in mum mode and survival”.
