Teen's brain bug battle record

Jun 4 2007 By Mark Cowan, Birmingham Mail

BEING struck down by the deadly brain bug meningitis once is bad enough, but battling Hannah Laffoley has had to fight off the disease seven times.

The teenager, who lives in Kings Heath with mum Esme, is the only person in the UK to have contracted the disease so many times.

After Hannah beat the disease the first time aged five, doctors told her parents she had more chance of being struck by lightning twice than getting it again.

Since then, she has contracted meningitis six more times.

But each time she has beaten of the disease and lived to tell the tale.

Amazingly, the 19-year-old does not consider herself unlucky even though she has lost the hearing in her right ear and suffers epilepsy as a result.

"I just feel lucky that I have pulled through each time," said the former Bishop Challoner School, Kings Heath, pupil.

"It's been terrible for mum, seeing me fight for life so many times.

"We celebrate birthdays three times over, we are so glad that I am alive."

Hannah first contracted bacterial meningitis in October 1993 at the age of five.

Dad Guy raised the alarm but in the ambulance on the way to hospital her heart stopped and she had to be revived.

She was put on a life support machine and doctors told her parents she had little chance of survival and even if she did, she would be brain damaged.

Hannah said: "They were devastated but I held on and after a couple of days came out of the coma."

Hannah emerged unaffected from the coma but it took her a year to learn to walk again properly.

She was struck down again in March 1999 aged ten. Experts at Birmingham Children's Hospital in Birmingham fought for six hours to save her life.

"I was unconscious for two days and again doctors told mum if i came out alive, I would have brain damage. She stayed by my bedside, praying I would recover."

Esme, aged 41, found her prayers were answered, but less than a year later, Hannah was diagnosed with meningitis for the third time which caused the loss of hearing.

Since then, Hannah has contracted meningitis another four times, in June 2000, March 2006, September 2006 and January 2007.

Tests have shown her spleen does not work effectively which might explain when she has fallen victim so many times.