Bucks Fizz star Jay Aston has revealed her heartache over her daughter Josie, who has been battling bacterial meningitis in hospital for weeks.
Josie, 18, was rushed to intensive care and put into an induced coma after her organs began to fail last month, and she’s currently in a specialist kidney unit at King’s College Hospital in south .
The 60-year-old pop star revealed doctors have said it’s 50/50 whether her daughter will recover.
Bacterial meningitis is an infection of the membranes that protect the spinal cord and brain, which causes them to swell resulting in life-threatening problems.
It’s considered more dangerous than the more rare viral meningitis, and one in 10 cases is fatal. Possible side effects include brain damage, hearing loss, and limb amputation.
Now the singer, whose hits include Making Up Your Mind with the 1980s pop group, has spoken out about her ‘devastating’ ordeal, revealing she couldn’t be without her daughter.
Speaking to , she said: ‘It’s been absolutely devastating. We were told it was 50/50 whether she would pull through. We still don’t know when she’ll be coming home.
‘I sat by her bedside night after night willing her to make it.
‘I couldn’t believe this was her fate, because she’s such a lovely person. She’s outgoing, kind, good-willed and full of life. It just felt so cruel.
‘I’ve been doing a lot of praying. She’s my world – we’re ridiculously close. I just couldn’t imagine being without her.’
In March, Jay noticed a rash on her daughter’s arm, which she immediately realised was meningitis, as her husband drummer Dave Colquhoun, Josie’s father, had also contracted it 19 years earlier.
She was rushed to hospital, which doctors revealed saved Josie’s life, and within an hour her entire body was covered in a rash.
The following day, the teenager’s organs began to fail, and she was taken to intensive care, where she was placed in an induced coma, given oxygen, and treated with antibiotics.
Jay expressed her shock at the diagnosis, when a few days earlier, Josie had been ‘fit and healthy,’ while excitedly preparing to go on holiday and start a new job.
Josie was in a coma for five days, while Jay slept beside her in a chair, until doctors removed her from the coma, but, there was no improvement.
‘She didn’t come round for two days. They were the two worst days of my life. There was no response. I knew it could go either way. But I couldn’t let myself think that I might lose her,’ she revealed.
Jay has also had health battles of her own, including when she had mouth cancer in 2018, and a spell of Covid-19 in 2021.
She said that the fear of losing her beloved daughter made this the ‘worst month of her life’, while saying she would ‘swap places with her in a heartbeat’.
The star also expressed her hopes that her daughter would be released later this week, while hoping to raise awareness that meningitis can be spread by sneezing, coughing and kissing.
However, for now, she’s just happy that her daughter is alive, knowing how close she came to losing her.
