I lost three limbs after my cough turned into deadly sepsis – don’t make the same mistake I did
A FORMER nurse lost both her legs and an arm after a cough turned into deadly sepsis.
Jayne Carpenter, 51, from Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales, spent nine weeks in hospital fighting for her life.
Her husband Robert, 55, was told she would die unless she had a triple amputation.
When she eventually came out of a coma, she had lost four of her fingers on her right hand, her left arm below the elbow and both her legs.
But three years on from her ordeal Jayne is now fundraising for a new set of artificial limbs that she says will transform her life.
The quadruple amputee said: "It's been completely devastating and life changing. Getting sepsis is something you never predict will happen to you.
It's been completely devastating and life changing. Getting sepsis is something you never predict will happen to you
Jayne Carpenter
"It turned my world upside down.
"I haven't let it defeat me but I do get my dark moments."
Jayne's illness began in April 2016 when she developed what she thought was a cough.
She said: "I'd had quite bad cough and was coughing up dark coloured phlegm.
"I was getting worse and I just thought it was a virus.
"The following day I woke up and felt short of breath and couldn't walk anywhere.
"I thought it was a cough, as a nurse I thought it was something fairly trivial so didn't want to make a fuss."
Jayne described her symptoms to her local GP who advised her to go to A&E but did not suspect that she had the early stages of deadly sepsis.
Initially told that she had pneumonia her condition quickly began to deteriorate and she entered a coma.
Doctors were forced to carry out a triple amputation to save her life and she spent nine weeks in a coma.
What are the signs and symptoms of sepsis?
SEPSIS is the primary cause of death from infection around the world, claiming around 40,000 lives in the UK each year.
The condition is always triggered by an infection.
Most often the culprit is an infection we all recognise - pneumonia, urinary infections (UTIs), skin infections, including cellulitis, and infections in the stomach, for example appendicitis.
Normally the body's immune system sends white blood cells to kill off the bacteria causing the infection, but this goes into overdrive when a person develops sepsis.
The immune system - the body's defence mechanism - overreacts and the result is it attacks the body.
It can lead to organ failure and septic shock, which can prove fatal.
Known by its colloquial name "blood poisoning", sepsis is also often referred to as a "flesh-eating disease".
Symptoms include:
- weakness
- loss of appetite
- fever and chills
- thirst
- difficult or rapid breathing
- rapid heart rate
- low blood pressure
- low urine output
She said: "It will completely and utterly change my life without a shadow of a doubt.
"It'll give my freedom and independence back.
"My life was stripped away and I just need to regain some of the normality that sepsis took away from me."
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