‘Where's my mummy?'

Rebecca Bailey, 33, was left totally heartbroken when her little girl forgot who she was

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Waving to my daughter, Alice, then four, I watched as she trotted off through the school gates, arm in arm with her new friends. She’d only started a few weeks earlier, and while she was nervously clutching my hand on her first day, now she barely turned around to say goodbye, engrossed in her new, exciting world.

It was September 2018 and I’d known Alice would love school – and, sure enough, she’d settled in, coming home most days in a flurry of excitement and with a new piece of work. ‘This one’s for you, Mummy,’ she’d grin, and I’d proudly pin every piece to the fridge.

Me and Alice’s dad, Lewis, then 25, had split when she was a baby and, while we shared custody, day to day it was usually just me and Alice, and we’d developed a close bond. She’d often creep into bed with me in the middle of the night. ‘Love you,’ she’d whisper, wrapping her little arms around me.

Only, one night, I noticed she felt hot, and when she complained of a headache, I kept her home from school.

‘I think it’s a virus,’ I told Lewis’ mum, Trudy, then 51, as I dropped Alice round before going to work as a coordinator at a law firm. Trudy promised to watch her closely, and that afternoon she texted to say Alice had perked up.

Yet, it didn’t last, and by the time I got Alice home that evening, she was being sick and had a temperature again.

Concerned, I stayed up watching her most of the night as she tossed and turned. Then, when she woke up with worry: something about her face wasn’t quite right. Usually, it was perfectly symmetrical, but now it looked lopsided and her left cheek and jaw were drooping.

More than a virus