A man was reunited with the doctor who saved his life after diagnosing and treating him for ‘deadly meningitis’ when he was a toddler.
21-year-old Ross Jamieson from Edinburgh, Scotland, was diagnosed with Meningococcal Septicaemia when he was aged two being given a ‘four million to one’ chance of survival.
Spending the best part of a year in hospital, Ross pulled through with the help of medical breakthroughs in battling the septicaemia and the work of extraordinary doctors.
Not only did Ross survive but against the odds he left the hospital having avoided the risk of disability and his limbs intact, something many other meningitis survivors are not so fortunate to say.
Fast forward 18 years, Ross is now a working actor having recently made his debut performance in the musical The Mould That Changed The World which happened to be about the antibiotics which helped save his life.
Showing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Ross was delighted when one of the doctors who treated him as a child attended with the two meeting after.
Their smiles say it all really:
Speaking exclusively to UNILAD, Ross said he was delighted when he found out his doctor was coming to see the play.
He added:
My doctor had been retired for several years and found out about the show from my current family doctor who passed on my contact information.
He then gave me a phone call out of the blue when I was out and it was the best phone call I’ve ever had. This man had such a massive role in saving my life, so speaking to him felt so great.
I then invited him to the show a few days later. When he was at the show and I was wanting to speak to him after, I actually had no idea what he even looked like since I had no memory of him!
When we finally met it was a great moment and we spoke like old friends. He also loved the show, which was a relief…it would have been a bit awkward if he had hated it…
Thank goodness for that hey Ross!
Appearing in a musical about antibiotic resistance and the discovery of penicillin felt quite ‘ironic’ for Ross seeing that it was a ‘total coincidence penicillin helped to save my life’.
He is grateful though he could appear in a performance which meant so much to him:
The message of the musical is to keep these drugs working. Antibiotic resistance is such an understated threat to humanity and it needs to be spoken about more.
It helps to send out the important message of antibiotic resistance and to raise awareness for meningitis research.
There are a lot of people who aren’t as lucky as I have been.
As Ross said, meningitis is still a major issue with the Meningitis Research Foundation stating it affects 2.8 million people globally each year.
To find out more about the disease, you can visit the Meningitis Research Foundation’s website.
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