Prayers at my bedside
Little did I know a killer lay in my handbag...
Finally relaxing, I soaked up the scorching June sunshine. Bliss!
It was a sunny Thursday morning last year, and I’d finished my final AS level exam the day before.
Now I was chilling out with friends at the local park before my afternoon receptionist shift at the local leisure centre.
Only, after a few hours, I had a really bad headache.
Heading to work, I tried to ignore it.
But by the time I’d finished my four-hour shift, I felt sick and faint.
And my head was absolutely pounding.
Must be sunstroke, I thought, blaming the hot day.
Back home, my mum Karina, 48, felt my forehead. ‘I’m sure it’ll pass,’ she said. So I had a cold shower and took some paracetamol before climbing into bed. But, next day, I felt worse. I couldn’t get up – and, by the evening, I was still laying in bed awake, shaking.
By the Saturday morning, I was drenched in sweat.
Next came the diarrhoea and vomiting – even though I hadn’t eaten for days.
Feeling dreadful, I looked up sunstroke online. All my symptoms matched. Headache, dizziness and confusion, plus loss of appetite and feeling sick.
‘See, it’s just sunstroke,’ I told Mum. She was worried, but it was my dad Mark’s 51st birthday and I didn’t want to make a big fuss.
So I played down how bad I really felt.
‘Go without me,’ I told my family as they left for a meal.
After waving them off, I just crawled back to bed.
At 4am on Sunday morning, I woke up desperate for the loo.
Only I collapsed on the bathroom floor and everything went black.
When I came around 30 seconds later, I was in agony. ‘Mum…’ I croaked. I was so weak, I barely mustered a sound.
Luckily, she heard me and rushed in.
‘This isn’t sunstroke, Jess,’ she panicked, dialling 999.
But I was drifting in and out of consciousness…
The next thing I knew, I was being helped into an ambulance, too weak to stand.
At Watford General Hospital I was rushed straight into Intensive Care.
‘Am I going to die?’ I asked doctors, totally delirious.
‘We’ll do the best that we can,’ one of them replied.
The next thing I can remember is waking up surrounded by doctors.
My temperature was sky-high but I felt freezing, and medics were still desperately trying to work out what was wrong with me.
Mum and Dad stayed by my side as doctors ran tests.
‘It’ll be OK,’ Dad said, while Mum looked terrified.
The day flew by in a blur of delirium.
Next, my 77-year-old grandma Gersean turned up and began praying.
And, with that, my confusion turned to fear!
What’s going on? I thought. What’s wrong with me? I was weak, helpless, scared. That evening, doctors gathered around my bedside.
‘Have you ever used tampons?’ one of them asked.
Tampons?
It seemed an odd question. ‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘I’ve used them for years.’
The following morning, they made a diagnosis.
‘You’ve got toxic shock syndrome,’ the doctor said.
‘It’s caused by a build-up of bacteria inside your body, and was almost certainly contracted through using a tampon,’ he explained.
I couldn’t get my head around it.
I’d never even heard of toxic shock
I collapsed – and then everything went black…
syndrome (TSS) before now. Couldn’t have imagined that tampons had put me here. I looked at Mum in disbelief. ‘But I’m really hygienic,’ I insisted, feeling embarrassed.
I’d started using tampons in my early teens.
I changed them regularly, never left them in overnight.
Yet, somehow, harmful bacteria had built up inside my body.
It had caused my internal organs to begin shutting down.
And even now that I had a diagnosis, my nightmare was far from over.
Doctors broke the news to my parents that my chances of survival were just a slim 30 per cent.
Terrifying.
I was hooked up to all sorts of machines and drips in Intensive Care.
Fighting for my life.
Doctors pumped antibiotics into my ravaged body. I was being fed by a tube, while dead skin on my hands and feet hardened and dried up. It was agony. The next day, it began to peel off in huge, disgusting strips. ‘Oh my God,’ I cried as chunks of dead skin fell away.
Still out of it, I didn’t feel like I was even looking at my own body. Friends came to visit. ‘You look like a lizard!’ one gasped when they saw me.
Eventually, the medication started to do its job and I began to perk up.
But it was only when my sister Jalna, 30, visited a few days later, that I understood how close I’d come to dying.
‘I was so worried,’ she cried. ‘Mum called, said you wouldn’t make it through the night.’
Gulping back tears as the reality hit home, I hugged her.
Although out of danger, it was a long road to recovery.
Nurses had to help me wash and go to the toilet.
After eight days, I was discharged, but put on two months’ bed rest.
Summer flew by, school started without me.
I missed so much, had to drop one of my three A levels.
And, while I’d always loved the gym and dancing, exercise left me breathless as my body recovered from the trauma.
Now, I’m extra careful using tampons and try to use sanitary pads instead.
I hope my story makes women more aware of the risks of tampons and TSS.
It may be rare – but it’s fatal if not treated.
And, believe me, you don’t want to die just because of a tampon.