A 34-year-old mother needs all of her fingers amputated and could lose her legs after being struck down with sepsis.
Sadie Kemp, from Peterborough, was building a toy kitchen with her two-year-old son on Christmas Day when she felt a sharp pain in her kidneys.
The mother-of-two was taken to hospital screaming in agony, but doctors there only gave her painkillers and said she should come back if it got worse.
By the early hours of Boxing Day Ms Kemp was back and claimed she was placed in an induced coma for two weeks.
Doctors found her kidney stone had triggered an infection, which had led to sepsis — a life-threatening condition where the body attacks its own tissue.
It can also cause blood clots leading to amputations, because they cut off the blood supply to limbs causing them to die.
The NHS Test and Trace worker had her left fingers amputated this week, and is set to lose all five on her right hand when her wounds have healed.
Doctors are still deciding whether her toes, feet and legs can be saved.
Describing her ordeal, Ms Kemp revealed when she came round she told her mother that she ‘should have turned off the life support’.
But her mother asked if she would rather see her children — Kenzie, 16, and Hendrix, 2 — at her bedside or at her grave.
Ms Kemp said: ‘I’ve realised I have been given a second chance at life. The doctors have told me they are so confused that I’m still here, I shouldn’t be alive given the amount of poison I had in my blood.’
Before sepsis (left) and afterwards (right). Sadie Kemp, 34, from Peterborough, felt a sudden pain in her abdomen on Christmas Day but thought it was because she was helping her son build a toy kitchen
Ms Kemp pictured with son Hendrix, two, in hospital. She says they are having to move house because she no longer qualifies for the property
Sepsis, known as the ‘silent killer’, strikes when an infection sparks a violent immune response in which the body attacks its own organs. It can be triggered from any type of infection.
It is the leading cause of avoidable death, killing around 45,000 a year, and the Daily Mail has long campaigned for more awareness.
If caught early, the underlying infection can be controlled by antibiotics before the body goes into overdrive — ultimately leading to death within a matter of minutes.
But the early symptoms of sepsis can be easily confused with more mild conditions, meaning it can be difficult to diagnose.
Sepsis can also lead to clots forming and blocking blood vessels, limiting the supply of vital nutrients and oxygen to the body’s limbs.
Starved of these resources tissue in the limbs can quickly die, leading to them needing to be amputated to avoid a bacteria infection spreading to other parts of the body.
When the back pain first struck, Ms Kemp thought it was due to bending down to help put the screws into Hendrix’s toy kitchen.
She went to have a bath because she thought it would help.
But then, she told the Mirror: ‘half an hour later I was screaming in pain on the floor saying I felt like someone was squeezing my kidney.’
Ms Kemp was placed in a two-week coma at Peterborough City Hospital and put on machines to keep her vital organs alive.
When she woke up, doctors said they may need to amputate both her arms and legs.
But Ms Kemp now says there is a chance her legs could be saved, whereas initially they were considering an amputation from below the knee.
The remainder of her hands will be sewn into a pouch in her abdomen.
Ms Kemp, who is divorced, said she has now lost her home because of sepsis.
She and her two sons were living in a house provided by a charity. But they must now move out because she is classified as disabled and cannot get up the stairs.
Her job with NHS Test and Trace is also gone, Ms Kemp says, because her current condition means she cannot drive to carry out contact tracing.
Ms Kemp said: ‘I’m just trying to get my head around why this happened and how this happened.
‘It has left me without a job and a house.
‘I’m not earning money for my kids. They haven’t got a roof over their heads and that makes me feel terrible. I just want to be there for them and give them some security
‘I was going through a divorce before this which had already cost me £10,000.
‘I’d just met my new partner and I thought I was finally starting from scratch and getting somewhere and then sepsis hit.’
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