A 40 year-old woman who thought she had a cold is facing a TRIPLE amputation after being struck with severe blood poisoning.
Mum-of-two Charly Babington was out shopping with a friend when she fell ill and 24 hours later was in a coma in hospital and on life support for 23 days.
She was diagnosed with pneumococcal sepsis, a serious bacterial blood infection with a near 40 per cent mortality rate.
She came round from the coma to find the horrific condition had tuned her hands and feet black, and she had no feeling in them.
Doctors then gave her the devastating news that she needed amputation surgery on both feet, her left arm, and three fingers on her right hand due to extreme blood loss caused by the sepsis.
Charly, who is now in hospital while she awaits the surgery, said: “My feet and one of my hands are just dead. I can’t move them at all.
“I can feel and move my arm from the wrist down, but the fingers are black and numb. I’m going to need three or four operations.”
She said: “I’m going to be disabled for life and there’s no avoiding that.
“We’re going to have to move; I’m going to need a ground-floor house.
“My little boy took it quite hard at first but I said to him, would you rather have a mum with plastic legs or no mum at all?
“The main thing is that I’m still alive.
“This sort of illness is extremely rare in adults and we still don’t know what’s caused it.
“Not many people can say they’ve beaten it, so in a way I’m very lucky.
“I’m looking on the bright side. Where’s feeling sorry for myself going to get me? I still have family and friends and two wonderful children to look after.
“I’m going to fight this fight and get through this recovery so I can get back to my children and normality.”
Charley, a cleaner from Blackpool, Lancs., was doing shopping when she started to get back-ache.
The pain was so bad she couldn’t walk so she decided to go home but when she got to the car she turned cold and jittery.
She recalled: “The next morning I said to my daughter, I don’t think I can manage taking you to school today. She said ‘never mind school mum, you need an ambulance!’
“My eyes were all swollen, my face was turning blue and I was struggling to breathe.”
Daughter Katie, 10, and son Shaun, 12, called for an ambulance, and Charly was taken to Blackpool Victoria Hospital A&E, where she fell into a coma.
Her kidneys failed and she was put on life support and a kidney filter machine for 23 days while doctors worked to save her life.
She said: “The last thing I remember is being in A&E and everybody in blue rallying around me. When I woke up I had missed my little boy’s birthday. I was devastated.”
A fundraiser has been set up by Charly’s friends to support the family while Charly is unable to work, and can be found online at www.justgiving.com/
