Abbey Clancy has shared how the 'scariest thing on earth' happened to her and her husband Peter Crouch after they jetted off to Portugal for a spring break. The couple headed off to sunnier climes with their children over the recent Easter holiday.
In a brand new episode of their podcast, the model revealed that their trip was quickly hit by a setback when they had to rush their eldest daughter to hospital in a "terrifying" emergency dash at 1am.
Abbey, 37, admitted her fears over the hospital dash after Sophia, 12, contracted viral meningitis, which causes an inflammation to the layers of tissue that cover the brain and spinal cord. Although rarely life-threatening, the virus must be treated immediately.
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The couple were then left even more scared after Sophia was taken into hospital when their youngest son Jack, three, then started coughing. It meant that Abbey and former footballer Peter were forced to return to hospital with their little one in fear that he had also contracted meningitis.
Abbey, who is also mum to Liberty, seven, and Johnny, five, said on The Therapy Crouch podcast: "The school holidays have been tough. We got to Portugal and Sophia was in hospital with meningitis which was just the scariest thing on earth.
"Being in a foreign hospital, language barriers, the words like meningitis being thrown around, lumbar punctures, brain scans. It was horrific - I felt so vulnerable - and scary. But I must say the medical care over there were just out of this world."
"These things always happen on a Sunday at one o'clock in the morning, just to add to that fear and that scariness of the situation. It can never be a normal hour," Abbey managed to joke about the hospital dash.
"With Sophia I just knew something was wrong, like it wasn't like a normal bug. I was going to Pete 'say meningitis', and it was. I actually couldn't believe it. So then having three babies at home I was thinking 'what if they catch it?'. We were on like high alert. We didn't sleep at all.
"I was watching every child like a hawk. It was just terrifying." Abbey confirmed her other three children all came down "with flu and coughs" after Sophia fell ill. "Sophia was out the hospital and we were back in the hospital with them because I was thinking 'I've got three other children, can they catch this viral meningitis?' It was traumatic," Abbey added.
"I think we had four hours sleep in like 30 hours… I've never been so scared in my life." Peter, 42, added: "That was just because we were so worried about Sophia, when he started coughing we felt like we had to take him."
The couple shared looking after their four children, with Peter taking the night duty in the hospital. "Obviously she (Sophia) had to stay in so we were just doing shifts," Peter said. "I was like doing the night shifts and then Abbey was doing the day shift.
"And we were on separate holidays completely. It wasn't a holiday to be honest, it was just looking after her. And it was scary, but then obviously you've got to look after the little ones. So that was obviously a traumatic experience."
But it appears things didn't get any easier when the family returned home: "We got home from Portugal all exhausted. Then get into bed, everyone's asleep and then Liberty comes in and goes 'Mum, dad, I feel like I've got the vomiting bug'. And Pete went 'f**k this, I can't be arsed with this'. And he just stood up and walked out the room and went into another bedroom."
Peter added: "I was like 'I'm out now, I'm just not doing this any more. I went to a different bed and shut the door and turned the light off. I washed my hands of it."
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