Mum’s asthma meant she missed her flu jab – what happened next still haunts me

Holding the phone in my hand, I began to tremble as the doctor gave me the dreadful news: my mum was in a coma. 

Just days earlier, she’d been excitedly chatting away to me and my sister about Christmas and how much she was looking forward to spending it with us. 

Now she was lying in a hospital bed fighting for her life and all because of the flu. 

My mum, Pam, was only 56 and while most people her age recover from flu with no issues, it was a bit more complicated for her.

As a child, Mum was diagnosed with severe asthma which meant that even a cold could hit her hard. However, she had always managed her condition well.

Then, aged 40, she got pneumonia, which caused long term damage to her lungs and, from then on, made her asthma much worse. She was in and out of hospital a lot and even had to be put into an induced coma twice because her asthma got so bad.

As teenagers, it was very worrying for me and my sister to see her go through all that. I remember feeling so helpless and afraid. 

By the time I was 18, Mum struggled so much with her breathing she had to use a wheelchair to get around and as she and my dad had split up it was down to me and my sister to help Mum when she needed it.  

With nebulisers and oxygen at home, she continued to manage as best as she could but would need to go into hospital whenever she got a chest infection or cold because it would cause her to cough a lot and struggle to breathe. 

Because it was so risky for her to get ill, Mum also made sure she had the flu vaccine every year to protect herself. But in 2003 she’d had an asthma attack and was in hospital at the time her flu jab was booked for.

It’s the only time she’d ever missed the vaccine and, though she intended to get it rebooked as soon as she was home, she didn’t get a chance to before falling ill. 

The week before Christmas, Mum called me to say she was going to take herself to hospital as she felt like she had a bad chest. I wasn’t overly concerned though. I knew Mum was just being sensibly cautious and she assured me she would be fine, that there was no need for me to go too.

I rang her at teatime that day to check on her and she told me she’d been admitted and her doctors had put her on medication for a chest infection but that she was OK.

Then, at about 2am, I was woken up by a phone call from the hospital. Mum had been unable to breathe and had collapsed. 

‘I’m afraid we’ve had to put her into an induced coma on life support,’ a doctor explained.

That’s when the shaking began. It had been a long time since Mum had been this bad and she’d sounded OK earlier. How had she deteriorated so rapidly? 

I called my sister and the two of us raced to Crewe Hospital. But just as we arrived, Mum was being put into an ambulance to be transferred to Ormskirk Hospital (which is nearly two hours away) as it was the closest hospital with a space in intensive care.

I hoped that she’d soon bounce back, but Mum’s condition only went from bad to worse.

Sitting at her bedside it was like watching a nightmare unfold before my eyes. The doctors were running multiple tests to try and determine what had caused this rapid deterioration. 

Turns out, she’d had a heart attack and, due to her asthma and the lack of oxygen, her organs were now shutting down. Basically, with her lungs so weak already, her body hadn’t been able to cope.   

On Christmas Eve, the doctors called my sister and I to say they could do no more for mum and that they were considering turning off the life support machine in the next few days.

It was so hard to even think about. We didn’t want to let her go. I held her hand and told her I loved her and always would before we left the hospital that night.  

Christmas Day was awful. I didn’t celebrate at all; instead I sat by Mum’s bedside in the evening wishing more than anything that she would somehow miraculously recover. 

Sadly, my lovely mum passed away the day after Boxing Day. I just felt numb. She was so young. I was utterly heartbroken. 

Then, when we received her death certificate we were dealt another blow: it stated that mum’s cause of death was influenza.

I couldn’t help but wonder what might have happened if she’d managed to have the flu jab in time. Would she have survived? Would this have happened at all? 

Though mum died over 20 years ago, in the modern era you don’t expect anyone really to die of flu. The reality, however, is that flu can be deadly, especially if you have a lung condition like asthma.

Even more concerningly, the charity Asthma + Lung UK recently reported that flu cases have been going up while the number of people having the flu vaccine has gone down. In its 2024 Life with a Lung Condition survey, the charity revealed that 80% of people with asthma questioned said colds and flu were a trigger for them.

Meanwhile, figures from the UK Health Security Agency show that the number of people aged six to 65 in the at-risk group in England having their flu vaccine by the end of October had dropped by more than 13% this year, compared to the same time last year. 

Now, I just want to urge everyone, especially those with asthma, to make sure they take their vaccination seriously.

Even though my asthma is not as severe as mum’s, I make sure to have the flu vaccine every year because it’s just not worth the risk to miss it.

And as a mother myself now to two children, I wish they could have met their grandmother. I tell them about her all the time and how much she would have loved them. And if she’d just been able to have her vaccine back then, she may have still been here today.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Ross.Mccafferty@metro.co.uk. 

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