I woke with no limbs
My infection-ravaged body was dying…
Blinking my eyes open, I saw fluorescent strip lights shining brightly above my head.
At my bedside, my daughters Gemma, 29, and Becki, 27, were in tears.
Then there was my hubby, Steve, 59, his usual smile replaced by a furrowed brow. ‘Oh, Mum!’ Becki sobbed. I could see from their faces something bad had happened.
But what?
My brain was in a total fog. I’d no idea where I was, how I’d got there, or what’d happened to me.
Looking down, I saw my hands were swathed in bandages.
Muddled, confused, I stared blankly at my worried family. There was no pain. Just complete and utter confusion.
Over the next few days, my daughters, Steve, and the doctors tried to fill in the missing pieces.
Nine weeks of them...
‘We were on holiday in Spain,’ Steve said. ‘Do you remember?’
But I’d no recollection of the month Steve and I had spent in a villa in Alicante, Spain.
We’d jetted off last November for an extended holiday.
Some winter sun and some much-deserved rest and relaxation from our busy jobs.
Steve was in customer service while I, originally a hairdresser, ran a wedding venue-dressing business with my eldest, Gemma.
But I couldn’t recall falling ill towards the end of the holiday.
Steve said I’d first come down with a stinking cold. I’d managed to shake that off, only to start suffering backache.
The pain had got so bad one lunchtime, Steve had taken me to the local clinic, where I’d had an X-ray.
‘The doctor suspected a kidney infection,’ Steve said.
I’d been given a course of antibiotics and had an early night.
But, at 3am, I’d woken up with freezing hands and feet, couldn’t stop shaking.
Steve had helped me up and into the car. But as he drove me to hospital, I wasn’t with it.
‘You were freezing cold,’ he told me.
I was slurring my words, breathless.
Again, now, I searched my memory, desperate for some recollection, some small glint of recognition.
But my mind was completely blank.
At the hospital, I’d been so ill the doctors had immediately put me into an induced coma.
Steve was warned I’d be lucky to survive the next six hours.
In a panic, he’d called Gemma and Becki, told them to prepare for the worst.
They, along with my mum Jean, 75, had jumped on the first flight they could.
As my family rushed to my side, I’d been put on a ventilator, dialysis and a life-support machine.
The doctors told everyone I wasn’t going to make it.
I had sepsis – blood poisoning. A deadly infection.
It was caused by bacteria in my lungs – probably from the cold I’d suffered.
Yet, by some miracle, when the girls and Mum arrived, I was still clinging on.
As I lay in a coma, fighting for my life, all they could do was wait. Take it day by day, as my body struggled desperately
We jetted off for some winter sun – rest and relaxation
Slowly, my hands and feet turned completely black...
to fight the deadly infection.
I was pumped full of antibiotics and other meds.
But as the weeks went on, my hands and feet turned blue, then purple.
It was a sign my body was shutting off the blood supply to my limbs. Making a last-ditch attempt to save my vital organs.
‘What’s happening?’ Becki had asked.
But the doctor didn’t speak English and just shook his head sadly, making scissor signs with his hands. They’d been terrified. The doctors tried a few times to bring me out of the coma. I wasn’t responding. Christmas and New Year came and went, still I was in a coma in Intensive Care.
Slowly, my hands and feet turned completely black.
They’d become necrotic – the cells and tissues were dead.
And the necrosis was slowly creeping up my limbs...
That’s when the doctors decided to finally transfer me back to the UK.
So, this January, I was taken by a special air ambulance to Milton Keynes University Hospital.
The girls had already flown home, and met me and Steve there. It was still touch and go but the doctors managed to stabilise me.
That’s when they decided it was time to wake me up.
They finally managed to bring me out of the nine-week coma. I was still heavily medicated, still very confused. Over the next few days, Steve, the girls and the doctors had to repeatedly tell me the details before they sank in.
At one point, I looked down at my black, wizened limbs, and recoiled in horror. They looked as if they’d been dipped in paint...
They canõt be mine,
I thought, totally overwhelmed. As I became more lucid, a
specialist came to see me.
‘It’s a miracle you’re still alive,’ he said.
He’d never seen such a bad case of sepsis in his 40-year career. Then he dropped a bombshell. ‘But if you’re going to survive, we’ll need to amputate,’ he said.
The surgeons needed to remove both legs from just above the knee, and both hands.
And as soon as possible – before the necrosis took over my entire body.
I just stared at him, trying to take it all in...
Over THE page: ‘I knew I had no choice if I wanted to survive…’