Here’s How Jesse Keith Survived Group B Strep’s Deadly Infection

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

(HealthDay News) -- Nearly 10 years ago, Shelene Keith of Los Osos, Calif., gave birth to a baby boy, Jesse.

Keith knew nothing about Group B streptococcus -- that she could be carrying the germ, that there was a test available to determine if she had it, and certainly not that it could be deadly to her son.

"I didn't know about it. Only about half the doctors in the United States tested for it at that time," Keith, now 43, said.

A day and a half after Keith delivered, her doctors gave her the OK to take Jesse home.

Looking back, there were some signs in the hospital that things weren't quite right.

Jesse kept crying with a high-pitched sort of cry, and grunted off and on. "I thought he was constipated or something," she said. "Those turned out to be signs of meningitis."

Six hours after Jesse came home, he stopped eating and went white, Keith said. She took his temperature -- 102.5 degrees. She and her husband, Chris, rushed Jesse back to the hospital, where they found a neonatal intensive-care unit doctor just leaving for the night.

"They didn't even admit, they just rushed him in," Keith recalled. "The doctor stayed by his side for 24 hours."

After awhile, the doctor came out to tell the Keiths their son had meningitis and probably wouldn't make it through the night.

"My husband and I, our hearts just fell to our toes. It was horrible," Keith said. "When your child is born, you think everything's going to be fine. You never want to hear those words."

In the same breath, the doctor said it all could have been prevented if she had undergone a $25 test at 25 weeks of pregnancy and received $10 worth of penicillin prior to birth. "That's when we started getting angry," she said.

Jesse was wracked with seizures throughout the night. But, the next morning, he was still alive, and the doctor let the Keiths know he expected the boy to live.

After 17 days in the hospital, Jesse went home again.

But one month later, Jesse began projectile vomiting. A CAT scan revealed hydrocephalus, a side effect of meningitis that causes excess fluid in the brain.

He was rushed to surgery, where a 3-inch shunt was placed in his brain to drain the fluids through a tube down his neck to his stomach. Seven months later, the boy underwent a second brain surgery because the shunt malfunctioned and had to be replaced with a larger one.

Today, Jesse bears few scars from his early illness. He takes medication for seizures, which he started getting around 5 years old.

"He has night seizures," Keith said. "His whole face just distorts, and he chokes on his own saliva and drools and makes a gurgling sound. I just hold him in my arms until it goes away."

But Keith considers Jesse blessed, given how many children with Group B strep-induced meningitis end up in wheelchairs or disabled in other ways.

"He's amazing," she said. "He's very funny, and he loves God, and he's just a great kid."

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