I rang him early on the Monday and he said he was feeling much better, but I was not satisfied and we went over. When he opened the door he collapsed in my husband's arms and I knew that he had to have the doctor called. We rang the NHS Direct and they said to ring for an ambulance, because by then my father was having difficulty in breathing. My father would not hear of this and said that he would not have one. We relayed this to NHS Direct and stated that maybe if a doctor talks to him he will agree, and they said they would send out a doctor. But when the doctor arrived he was not proactive at all, and would not call an ambulance stating that my fathers own GP would have to see him in the morning. So my father suffered all through the night and I really thought we would lose him. When his own GP, late next morning saw him, he called an ambulance straight away, he made the decision that hospital treatment was required immediately.

When he got to hospital he was almost immediately sent to ICU and they took one look of him and saw that he had a gaping wound in his scrotum area. They sent him for a CT scan and ever test available and, after a very short time, he was having an operation. When they came back with the test results they found my father to have necrotizing fasciitis. I had never heard of this disease but soon found out how destructive this nasty flesh eating disease could be.

My father was in hospital for 58 days and had approximately 13 debridements, and the hospital staff were absolutely fantastic and supportive in the ICU. My father could not have been looked after any better; he had 24 hour supervision and was never left on his own. We thought that he was getting better, and then they found another breakout so he had to have another operation but by now the flesh eating bug had eaten most of his stomach and the top of his legs, then he started having trouble coming off the breathing machine and we found out that when they did the last debribement they had to take some his muscle away in his chest, which impacted his ability to breathe for himself.

Day by day my father fought hard to stay with us but in the end his body finally had enough and he died at 1.25 Wednesday 1st February 2006. This is very painful to write about this. My dad meant the world to me and my family and he will be greatly missed. I cannot imagine life without him.