A matter of weeks after giving birth to twin girls, Victoria Whittle realised the future was going to look very different for her babies.

The first-time mum had taken younger twin Emily to her local hospital in Burnley after she started being sick repeatedly and wouldn’t stop crying.

Told on arrival by a nurse that it was “probably colic”, within 15 minutes the tiny baby was surrounded by doctors inserting tubes and needles into her.

She was blue-lighted to the children’s hospital in Manchester where doctors delivered a devastating prognosis: Emily had meningitis, and they didn’t expect her to survive the night.

Thankfully she defied those odds and survived – yet specialists told Victoria her daughter’s future would be challenging when she was finally discharged eight months later.

Em

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