A couple whose perfect lives came crashing down 10 years ago when their 17-month-old daughter died while they were on holiday have spoken of their grief, and their recovery.
TV presenter Danielle Nicholls and topflight footballer Dean Holden lost their daughter Cici while on a family holiday in Lanzarote in 2012.
Danielle and Dean have spoken to the MEN about the last 10 years, lending their voice to a vital cause and plans for the future.
The childhood sweethearts first found fame in the late 1990s when Danielle was the face of CITV and Dean was breaking into Bolton Wanderers' first team.
Dean enjoyed a career in the Football League, including as captain of Oldham Athletic, and Danielle scaled back her career to spend time raising their three young children - Joey, Ellis and Cici.
Cici was the daughter the couple had longed for
Their lives were perfect, until a holiday in Lanzarote in May 2021.
The trip began with a delayed nine-hour flight to the island, so when Cici seems out of sorts on arrival the couple were not overly concerned - they were all tired from the long journey.
Danielle said: "She was exhausted and really lethargic, but we put that down to her being 17 months and that we'd been travelling all that time.
"We woke up once with her in the night and she was a little bit warm. We gave her a bit of Calpol, changed her nappy and put her back in bed.
"But by the time we got up the next morning we knew she wasn't right."
Cici's condition quickly deteriorated and she was rushed to a clinic on the island, where a helicopter was waiting to take her to the nearest intensive care unit.
Within three hours, Cici had died.
"That's what's scary for people I think - how quickly it can develop," said Danielle.
"She was our most laid back, chilled out kid.
"She had bright red hair and blue eyes, and she was dead unique looking - she looked like something out of the olden days because I used to dress her up in frills and that.
Cici at her Christening with godfather Stephen Mulhern, Danielle's co-presenter on CITV in the late 1990s (Image: Family handout)
"I'd waited ages to have my little girl."
Cici had suffered meningococcal septicemia - a bacterial infection which causes blood poisoning, leading to sepsis.
The couple had to make arrangements to fly their daughter home, facing reluctance from airlines who feared it would 'upset other passengers'.
Danielle added: "It felt like I was in a horror movie. I can't be scared by a horror movie anymore because my actual life was that frightening.
"To hold your dead kid in your arms for two hours when she had died, just because I couldn't let go of her."
Dean said: "I can't remember the first days and weeks after she died because you're just in some kind of trance.
"The biggest thing is your personality just completely changes overnight - and then you start behaving in a way you never have before.
"That's hard because people start saying 'oh you're not the person you used to be' and you start fighting against it. You're in your own head all the time."
Danielle and Dean were left fearing the worst when Ellis came down with a raging temperature on the following night. He was unwell for a couple of days but recovered.
At home the couple were offered anti-depressants by their GP and decided against taking them.
Instead, they began group therapy, hypnotherapy, meditation and exercise.
They suffered post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) took hold.
The couple found solace from a support group for bereaved parents, known as Compassionate Friends, where they shared their experiences with other couples who had gone through the loss of a child.
Dean was supported by the Professional Footballers' Association, who helped him to see a therapist.
He said: "I'd been to see counsellors, and it was useless, so I went to see a psychotherapist and learned how the brain works post-trauma.
"I'd be screwed without that, because I needed to understand why I'd gone from being this chilled out bloke to all of a sudden this raging lunatic."
Danielle, Joey and Ellis were supported by the charity Meningitis Now, which has recently asked the couple to become ambassadors for the charity.
With collections at Dean's old football clubs Oldham, Bolton, Chesterfield, Shrewsbury and Walsall, they raised funds to give back to Meningitis Now and to fund sensory support equipment for their children's school.
Danielle said: "When your kid dies, you never feel any less pain, no matter how much time's gone by. It's just like you learn to live with the pain.
"Now is the time that I want to say to people, it's OK to not be OK, but by being that person - not just by saying it.
"I know what it's like to have that missing part of you that's never going to come back.
"Just taking the chance to say - I was that girl off kids TV, I had a kid died and everything went to s***, and I've got mental health issues - but it's OK."
Since Cici's death, Dean and Danielle have gone on to have two more children.
Dean said: "We talk about Cici so much, there's a massive picture of her at the top of the stairs. People will ask how many kids we have got, and it's a conversation wrecker but we don't know any other way to address it, we'll say we've had five but we've only got four.
Dean and Danielle with their children Chase, Joey, Ellis and Mitzi (Image: Manchester Evening News)
"Then they feel horrible for asking, but if we just say we've got four we might as well just brush her out of our life."
The couple use techniques like meditation, deep breathing and cold water immersion to help with their mental health ever day to avoid 'going to a dark place'.
They are big advocates for therapy and the methods they have used to help them live with the pain of losing Cici.
Although panic attacks can still take the couple back to the horrors of the day she died, they now feel able to bring their mental health back under control and avoid 'spiralling'.
Dean said: "If I'm late for something, I'm going back to the day Cici died. I start shaking, I start panicking - and I'm just late, but my brain doesn't know the difference.
"We've spent a lot of time with a lot of good people, but there are ways of resetting by doing strategies - tapping, cold showers and whatever.
“We do all kinds of weird and wonderful things that work."
Dean and Danielle suffered yet more loss after Cici's death, with five miscarriages.
Covid brought added strain - with lockdown robbing the family of their coping mechanisms following Cici's death, while Dean's work at Bristol City kept him away from home.
But now, the pair are looking forward to a bright future with their careers.
Having done live Twitch streams online for gaming on the BiigNoobs channel in recent months, Danielle is hoping to get back on TV and radio, with work in the pipeline.
Dean added: "When she goes in front of a camera or goes on stage, her eyes light up. That's what she was born to do."
Dean is now much closer to home as assistant manager for Stoke City.
Danielle said: "We've had so much sadness and tragedy, but it doesn't mean that we're miserable people who don't have a laugh, in fact quite the opposite.
"The two of us mess about all the time, that's how we get through life - we're friends, we mess about, we have a laugh - and that's the only thing you can do in life."
For help or information about Meningitis Now see the charity's website, or for support call 0800 80 10 388.
