(Picture: SWNS)
Suzanne Graham, 45, thought she was suffering from a bad cold.
As her symptoms worsened during the run-up to Christmas five years ago, Suzanne, from Glasgow, assumed her cold had turned into the flu, but when she Googled her symptoms she realised the truth was much more severe.
‘One night, I couldn’t sleep, and I remembered that my friend, who was the same age as me, had had pneumonia,’ she said at the time.
‘I thought that was unusual, because I’d always associated pneumonia with older people, so I looked up the symptoms of pneumonia and the flu, and quickly found that my symptoms were all pointing towards pneumonia.’
She quickly booked an emergency appointment with her GP which, despite only being 50 metres up the road, she needed to be driven to by her husband because of how week she felt.
Suzanne thought she had the flu (Picture: Suzanne Graham / SWNS)
‘The GP measured my blood oxygen and listened to my lungs,’ Suzanne said.
‘I just remember her saying to me, “I don’t want to alarm you, but we will be calling an ambulance – you have to go to hospital”.’
It turned out Suzanne had severe pneumonia, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and sepsis. She only had 10-20% of her lung function.
‘The ambulance came and took me to intensive care,’ she said.
‘I remember getting into the ambulance, but I have no memories from then on, so this is all from what I’ve been told by family members.’
By the time she was put on a ventilator, doctors warned Suzanne’s husband that the situation had ‘spiralled out of control’ – the oxygen from the ventilator wouldn’t be enough to keep her alive.
The only option was ECMO, or ExtraCorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, a treatment that uses an artificial lung to oxygenate the blood outside of the body.
ECMO is only used in rare cases, and the closest machine was 145 miles away in Aberdeen.
A team of five medical staff drove Suzanne through the night with a portable ECMO machine, which Suzanne was immediately hooked up to on arrival.
Suzanne was driven 145 miles to Aberdeen to receive a rare treatment (Picture: Suzanne Graham / SWNS)
At this point, Suzanne said, ‘it was getting into a multi-organ failure type situation – my lungs and kidneys were failing.’
She stayed in Aberdeen for a week before becoming well enough to return to Glasgow.
She remained in intensive care for a while, where she experienced hallucinations, before being moved to a high dependency unit to start her recovery.
‘I was bed bound,’ she said. ‘I was in hospital for three weeks, and it’s amazing just how quickly you lose your muscle mass.’
Suzanne couldn’t even sit up, let alone stand up, and three physiotherapists had to help her stand for the first time.
Thankfully, after extensive work during the week with physiotherapists to learn to adjust to using crutches, Suzanne was finally able to return home.
Suzanne is passionate about raising awareness of sepsis symptoms (Picture: Suzanne Graham / SWNS)
‘Physically, the main recovery was centred around building up my fitness,’ she said. ‘I’d lost a lot of weight and muscle mass, so I was building up fitness.
‘I’m so grateful to the doctors and hospital staff, they were amazing.
‘My family was there by my side the whole time and supported me through.
‘I’ve been extremely lucky to survive it intact – sepsis can cause loss of limbs and have other physical effects.
‘I’m very lucky to have made a complete recovery.’
Five years on, Suzanne is passionate about sharing her story and raising awareness about sepsis, which kills around 50,000 people per year in the UK.
According to charity Sepsis Research FEAT, symptoms to look out for include a very high or low temperature, confusion, shaking, blotchy skin and a difficulty urinating.
If you experience combinations of these symptoms or rapidly worsening symptoms, be sure to seek urgent medical attention.
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