Eight week whooping cough battle

Toni Somes | 4th July 2009

SHILO Novley has sat up for hours at night struggling to breathe, she has gone days without sleep and suffered coughing fits so severe she broke her ribs.

Shilo Novley is recoverieng from an eight-week battle with whopping cough.

Warwick Daily News

SHILO Novley has sat up for hours at night struggling to breathe, she has gone days without sleep and suffered coughing fits so severe she broke her ribs.

The 29-year-old Warwick single mum is only now emerging exhausted, but okay, from an eight-week battle with whooping cough.

“It was diabolical. Debilitating. There were nights I had so much trouble getting a breath I worried I was actually going to die,” she said.

In fact the Warwick Animal Welfare Association president admits she passed out on several occasions during her battle with the bacterial infection.

“I started with just flu-like symptoms: A really sore throat, fever and then a cough,” Ms Novley said.

But within days this self-described 'fit and healthy' woman was so ill she could barely get out of bed.

“It was so unusual for me. When I get sick I am always better a day later,” she said. “Yet this time I couldn't get over it.”

A trip to the Warwick Hospital - at the urging of concerned family and friends - confirmed she had whooping cough, or pertussis.

Her seven-year-old son was put on a course of antibiotics to ensure he didn't get the highly-contagious illness, while adult friends and family were forced to be re-immunised.

“I think we all thought we had been immunised as children and it would last forever, but that isn't the case,” Ms Novley said.

Unfortunately the nature of the bacterial infection meant there was little modern medicine, over-the-counter pharmacy products or old-fashioned natural remedies could do to ease the illness' hold on her.

“Nothing worked. The doctors told me to rest and I was exhausted, the coughing was so severe I vomited and at one stage broke my ribs,” Ms Novley said.

She said the illness renown for its chest-wrenching coughing symptoms kept her home, bed-ridden and barely able to do anything for three weeks.

“My seven-year-old son is autistic and I have a menagerie of animals to care for, so I managed with the help of family and friends,” she said.

“At one stage I would just struggle out each morning and drop Troy at school and then come home and go to bed until it was time to collect him again.

“It was awful. I don't think I really knew you could get so sick.”

Eight weeks since her diagnosis she is starting to recover.

“I am weaker than ever. I lost four kilos and I'm still fatigued, but I am on the mend,” she said.

The personable Warwick identity is urging other adults in the city to be re-immunised and insure their children are protected against the debilitating, and potentially fatal, infection.

“People don't want to get this. It's a dreadful illness,” Ms Novley said.