Curled up on the couch next to his mum, Connor Coombes seems like a typical 10-year-old boy – he loves football, riding his bike and playing on his iPad. But last October, Con, as he’s known, had a terrifying brush with death that’s changed the sandy-haired youngster’s viewpoint forever.
“I want to go to New York, explore the world and just live my life,” he declares, smiling up at his mother Jess Coombes, 29. The mental health nurse says, “We came close to losing Con, but he’s come through and now has a new maturity. I’m so very proud of him.”
Con’s near-death experience began innocently enough, when he was stung on the nose by a bee in the garden of his rural home in Hastings.
When his face began to swell, Jess took him to the doctor and he was treated over the next few days with antihistamines and Paracetamol, but he remained lethargic and complained of a sore throat.
“Con’s been a 100 mile-an-hour kid since he was in my stomach,” tells Jess. “I knew something was wrong.”
Connor on the mend with his beloved dog.
She took him back to the doctor twice more, and he was eventually diagnosed with strep throat and given penicillin.
Five days after the bee sting, Con woke at night screaming about pain in his mouth. “At first, I couldn’t see anything, but then I noticed all these tiny blood blisters inside his lips,” recalls Jess. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Within hours, her son was struggling to breathe and began to vomit. Jess raced him to Hawke’s Bay Hospital – and by the time he arrived in A&E, he was so weak, he couldn’t stand.
“They put him on morphine for the pain, but by then he couldn’t breathe. He was coughing up blood and choking, and the blisters were starting to develop on his back and chest.”
For two weeks, Con’s life hung in the balance in the intensive care unit (ICU) as the ominous blisters advanced across his body, and internally in his nose, mouth and throat.
Connor is pictured in his second week in ICU after being stung by a bee.
Although doctors are still perplexed, they believe Con contracted Stevens-Johnson syndrome, a rare and potentially life-threatening disorder that’s often a reaction to medication or an infection. It causes intense pain as the skin blisters and peels, and affects the mucous membranes inside the body, making it difficult to breathe, eat and swallow.
Jess, a single mum whose world revolves around her only child, was thrust into a position of helplessness. She could do little but support her boy and trust in the expertise of the doctors. Luckily, she knew many of them from an ICU placement during her nursing training.
“When I first walked into the room and saw him on a ventilator, it was so hard,” she admits. “But the head of ICU said to me, ‘It’s OK – he’s safe now, Jess.’”
Amazingly, Jess began her new dream job as a mental health nurse for a drug and alcohol service when Con was in a medically induced coma. For a fortnight, her life was a whirlwind of late nights and early starts keeping vigil by her son’s hospital bed, followed by a quick shower before heading off to her new job.
“I knew he was in good hands and I was only a phone call away,” she explains. “As a single mum, a good job is a lifeline for us.”
By then, Jess’s mum Julie Huntley, 46, stepbrother James Huntley, 26, and sister Paula-Kayte Huntley, 21, had arrived from Australia to support her and Con.
Finally, after two weeks, medical staff removed the intubation tube from Con’s nose so he could breathe on his own. Although he struggled to talk, the first thing he did was mouth ‘I love you’ to his mum. He also made it clear he wanted salted caramel ice cream, laughs Jess.
Yet within an hour, Con’s demeanour changed. “He was acting weird, hiding under the blanket and imagining things, and I saw his eyes switch.”
Con developed ICU psychosis, a disorder where patients suffer delirium, often due to the drugs in intensive care. “That was the hardest part,” says Jess. “He was finally awake but didn’t seem to recognise me.”
Six months on, Con is still regaining his strength and balance, but continues to make progress.
It took three days for Con to come right after doctors weaned him off the drugs. He’d lost a staggering 10kg in hospital and was so weak, he had to learn to walk again.
Before he became sick, Jess had planned to take Con to Perth for her mum Julie’s wedding. Although doctors were concerned he wasn’t strong enough, Jess knew it was just the tonic her son needed. “Con was in a wheelchair the day we arrived at the airport, but that was the last day he used one.”
Six months on, Con is still regaining his strength and balance but making progress every week. The bond between mother and son has strengthened since the ordeal. “He knows more about life and how precious it is,” explains Jess.
For her, Con’s brush with death has made her realise he’s not just her precious only child, but also her entire life. “Things have changed so much for both of us. Every day now is like a second chance at love.”
Words: Fiona Tomlinson
