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Means nothing to most, but this was the amount of days Andrew walked this life. Some days were so god damn hard, an uphill battle fighting for him to get what he needed as a child, but it’s a battle I’d walk a million times over even if I knew what would come! 

Encephalitis is rare and some say very rare, more rare than sepsis, only 6000 cases seen across the uk in a year, only 500,000 world wide against 6 million for sepsis.

6 or 7 days of cold like symptoms 3 of flu and 33 days of the NHS battling to save our son, brother, and uncle.

We will never really know why? Why Andrew? He was a relatively fit and health young adult but it wiped him out, no rhyme no reason. No build up, no signs of what was to come, nothing he did or said pointed to the future that was to come.

Nights without sleep, constant worry, waiting for the phone to ring during the time he spent in ICU, test, tests and more tests! Had he traveled? Where did he go, what did he do? So many questions but never any answers. 

Never any answers! 

Hours we sat at his bedside, holding his hand, talking and talking. Playing music, tv on in the background always waiting.
Waiting! That’s one thing we could do was wait; for him to respond, recover, react? What would we have given for just that moment, just that time when alarms would stop, when he’d stir and come back to us.

We'd have given anything for that, anything! 

But we had to do the hardest thing ever to say goodbye, we stood and watched as machines fell silent and Andrew slipped away, where to? Who knows? Or why!

As his Mum, I’d have given my life for his, instead I had to watch his life go. No parent should bury their child or sibling bury their younger one but this we had to do today. It was harder than we thought possible but we did.

Our world is shattered, the tears still flow. Yet the world keeps turning like nobody knows.  So while we all fall apart like there’s no tomorrow to come, we promise you one thing is; Andrew, that each of us carry on inside our hearts. We will talk of you often, we will speak your name, you will always be with us wherever we go, whatever we do always.