![\"'Jimmy\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4787858_21_articleinlinemobile_DSC_2752.jpeg\" "\\"'Jimmy\u2019s")
‘Jimmy\u2019s long-term health is still a question mark.’<\/p>\nThe mother of a Cork toddler who had sepsis as a newborn baby, leaving him with a damaged kidney and a slower growth rate, has urged other parents to learn the signs of the potentially lethal condition.<\/p>\n
Although Eimear Hallahan\u2019s son Jimmy is nearly aged three now, the little boy still battles with the effects of sepsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cJimmy\u2019s long-term health is still a question mark,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis left kidney only has 20% function so we don\u2019t know where this road is going to take us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Within days of Jimmy’s birth in October 2022, Eimear and her husband Jack were worried something was not right compared to Jimmy’s brother JJ, just 11 months older.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t pinpoint what was wrong,\u201d she said. \u201cJimmy was so flat, so lethargic. He really didn\u2019t go for his bottle much, he slept a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Despite getting reassurances, they continued to worry.<\/p>\n
So at just two weeks old, they took him to Cork University Hospital from their home in Cloyne.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithin about 30 minutes they were performing a lumbar puncture on him because they realised how sick he was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
‘Jimmy\u2019s long-term health is still a question mark.’<\/p>\n
\u201cThey pointed out to us we were very, very lucky we had brought him in when we did. They said the likelihood was he would have gone into septic shock that night.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“It was quite scarring for us because we\u2019d been told he was fine.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Within 24 hours he was transferred to Children’s Health Ireland at Crumlin hospital. This has one of the two paediatric intensive care units in Ireland.<\/p>\n
CUH advised calling his grandparents in so they could see him first.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew then it was very, very bad,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hospitals along the route were alerted in case an emergency stop was needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really, really touch and go, I can\u2019t stress enough how touch and go it was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Tests showed multiple infections as well as the kidney issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a big one on his pelvis, a large one on his spine, two ribs were infected, his knees were infected, his arms,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cHe was so tiny, it was so, so, so frightening. But the one shining light was the staff at both CUH and Crumlin. They were amazing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Jimmy,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/4787861_21_articleinlinemobile_DSC_2693.jpeg\" "\\"Jimmy,")
Jimmy, right, with his brother JJ and mother Eimear Hallahan.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was January 6, 2023, before they could take him home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t realise that was the start of our longest journey,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The little boy came close to major kidney surgery last September but improved enough to avoid it at the last moment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just an absolute rollercoaster,\u201d she said, adding the kidney is still smaller than usual.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe say he\u2019s Jimmy the miracle, he\u2019s the cat with nine lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
His legs were also seriously infected. Sepsis can damage growth plates in children meaning bones stop growing later in life.<\/p>\n
Treatment includes having pins in his legs although doctors cautioned Eimear and Jack this has a low success rate.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the first of April this year, he had that done in his right leg and it hasn\u2019t worked,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cThey\u2019re not going to do it now for the left leg. So we\u2019re back to the point of being in limbo now with his legs.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The family will meet doctors again in December about his treatment.<\/p>\n
In and out of hospitals all his life, Jimmy has become used to being a patient.<\/p>\n
He sometimes travels in the Bumbleance children\u2019s ambulance to Dublin and his mother said: \u201cOur driver is Richie, and Jimmy said to me \u2018he\u2019s my other Granddad, isn\u2019t he\u2019?.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Eimear says that when she talks about sepsis with other parents, she finds it is little understood.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople always say to me \u2018how did he catch sepsis?\u2019, but you don\u2019t catch sepsis,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to have an infection before and then sepsis is your body\u2019s responses. I think there\u2019s not enough awareness of the condition. And I think there\u2019s also a lot to be said for a mother\u2019s instinct when it comes to her child.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ms Hallahan took part in a University College Cork sepsis survey, previously covered by the Irish Examiner to mark sepsis awareness month.<\/p>\n
Lead author Dr Aoife Fleming said: \u201cA lot of the feedback we had was sepsis can present for different people in different ways.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Fleming, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Pharmacy at the UCC School of Pharmacy, echoed Ms Hallahan\u2019s concern that many people do not understand sepsis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s your body\u2019s extreme response to an infection,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She added: \u201cIt starts damaging your normal tissues, and that\u2019s where sepsis can kick in. That impacts how the rest of your body functions and how your organs work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dr Fleming said they “hear a lot about the tragic cases, and they are tragic”.<\/p>\n
She called for better supports for patients like Jimmy who live with significant long-term consequences.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor those that survive, they need support,\u201d she said. \u201cOur report identified there\u2019s a gap there.<\/p>\n
“The report found consistent issues\u00a0\u2014 across the people we spoke to \u2014 in their aftercare.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The report\u00a0was prepared for the Department of Health.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mother of a Cork toddler who had sepsis as a newborn baby, leaving him with a damaged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74368,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[781,5606,18,135,19,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-74367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-childrens-health","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74368"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}