5 weeks old and fighting for her life

Hi my name is Kelsey and I want to tell you about my daughter Matilda. Matilda was born 4 weeks premature on the 2nd of February 2025. She was a perfectly healthy little girl. When she was 3 weeks old, she developed a slight cough so I took her to the doctors on the 25th of February and they told me it was just a virus. Her cough continued to worsen and she started turning purple when she would cough so I took her back to the doctors on the 28th of February. Despite having a coughing episode and turning purple in the doctors office, I was told she just had a virus and she was not sick enough for them to do anything and to bring her back if she had a fever over 37.5°C. She continued to decline over the weekend and, even though she still didn't have a fever, I took her back to the doctors on the 3rd of March. She had a coughing episode in the doctors office and then doctor told me to take her straight around to the Emergency Room. This was around 2.30pm. After being seen by the doctor in Emergency, they began liaising with Bendigo Hospital and the PIPER team from the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne and it was decided that Matilda should be airlifted to Melbourne. The PIPER team arrived in the plane around 6pm. They stabilised Matilda and transported her to Melbourne. I was unable to travel with her so her father and I got everything organised, dropped my older daughter off to stay with her friend while we're away and we headed straight to Melbourne.

The doctors at the RCH worked through the night to stabilise Matilda but she became so sick that they had to intubate her to give her little body the best chance of recovery.

On the 4th of March, Matilda tested positive to Whooping Cough and had developed pneumonia as a result.

Due to the risk that Whooping Cough poses to all the babies in the ward with Matilda, we were asked to leave the hospital until we had been tested. I didn't see my baby for 4 days and that was excruciating.

As I'm writing this, Matilda is still intubated and we don't know when they will be able to take the tube out or be able to come home.

As you can imagine, being 4 hours away from home and unable to work, the cost of having to stay in Melbourne while still paying all the bills at home is very hard to manage. We are just asking for a bit of help to allow us to focus on our daughter while she recovers.