I was diagnosed with Sepsis - a life-threatening reaction to an infection in the body/blood system - on Wednesday 7th September.

My body ached, the shivers and shakes were debilitating, and the pain in my head was a living hell. My blood pressure was scarily low, and heart rate was through the roof. My body temp was the highest it had ever been.

The doctors and nurses said I was like a puncture in a tyre but you couldn’t find the hole. They knew I was in septic shock, and that I had an infection somewhere, but had no idea where. So I was filled with the strongest set of antibiotics in the hospital; what the doctors like to call the “domestos” of antibiotics, but killing all the good and the bad.

At times I didn’t know if I’d make it; I couldn’t comprehend how anyone could go through something so terrible and be the same ever again. At times all I could do was cry.
The drugs that were meant to make me better made me worse at the same time. The dozens of cannulas have left bruises and marks like war wounds. The three lumbar punctures made me hurt even more. The CT scans made me more sick.

It took me days to step outside alone, but now I’m delighted to be getting closer to being more like myself every day. I still get anxious when I see the spare room - the room where it all went downhill.

I’m trying my hardest to erase certain memories from my mind, but it’s funny how the smallest things can bring it all back, like the smell of my moisturiser or the blood on my slippers.

I look forward to being over all the trauma, but until then: I’m going to share the signs and symptoms of Sepsis; I’ll be thanking our NHS, my lovely family, friends, and fiancé for looking after me so well; and, last but not least, I’ll be enjoying raising money for Sepsis by running the Edinburgh Half Marathon! 

Sepsis Research FEAT is a registered charity (SC049399) and it is the UK’s only sepsis research charity. 

Sepsis accounts for around 50,000 deaths in the UK every year - that's more than breast and bowel cancer combined.

 We don't understand enough about sepsis and the biological processes that can lead to serious illness or even death. That is why we urgently need to increase funding: 1) to raise awareness of sepsis; 2) for research: to understand the processes that lead to sepsis; 3) to design effective treatments for it; & 4) to help save lives.