For Poole and London hospital that saved my life

Feel free to share to help raise awareness and to help raise money for Poole and London critical care to save others.

 Earlier this year I was taken to Poole Hospital with pneumonia. I fell ill within a few days and was sent into ICU. Hours quickly turned into days and I was put into an induced coma to give my lungs a chance to rest. I was born with a condition called CCAM which are basically small cysts on the lungs. I was signed off from the doctors at a young age but it seemed to have come back. This complicated the pneumonia and in 24 hours my condition became life threatening and if something wasn’t done quickly I would die. The doctors came to a decision that I needed to be put on a life support called ECMO as Poole had no further options for me. A doctor, nurses and paramedics came all the way down from London to put me on ECMO. This in itself was life threatening and took 2 hours. I was then taken up to Guys and St Thomas where I stayed for the next 7 weeks. This was the best decision because my survival rate then went to 70%. On ECMO my lungs collapsed, I got sepsis, blood clots in my legs, I was bleeding internally and the infection was getting worse. The doctors and nurses worked hard to get on top of the infection and never gave up on me even though things weren’t getting any better. I had 3 chest drains put in, one in a big cyst and the other two to inflate my lungs. They were running out of options and my family thought this was it, they thought I was going to die. They then decided to give me a massive dose of steroids and things slowly started to turn around.

 I was constantly taken in and out of sedation to get my body used to working by itself. I was so heavily sedated that I constantly had nightmares and hallucinations , no sense of reality, being awake but saying different things to the people around me, I thought I was making things up in my head. I was awake but not aware of my situation. Thankfully my condition improved although slow progress it started to turn around and I was taken out of sedation fully. It was miraculous! I had fully woken up, but with no realisation of what had happened or how bad I was. My poor Mum had to break the news to me that I had nearly died and she watched me process everything she was saying and it was pure disbelief. I remember thinking this cannot be real please it just can’t be real. The only way I could let any sort of emotion out was cry. I couldn’t even speak about it. One of the worst things for me was when I realised I had no voice as I had a Tracheostimy in. This meant I couldn’t eat, drink or speak. It was so difficult because it took me a while to realise it was only temporary. I was so far from my family the only way I could see some of them was Facetime and even then I couldn’t speak to them. I was beginning to feel really angry and frustrated because my family couldn’t understand me while I tried so hard to communicate with them. Even when my family would visit for hours a day it just didn’t feel enough to me I wanted them there with my 24/7 but it just was not possible.

 They temporarily let me speak and I remember saying my first words ( Hello and I love you to my mum and cousin Emilie) and it was such a long process it took about 30 minutes to set up and it felt so strange to talk after going so long without a voice. They had to put the trachi back in as it was just too difficult to breathe without the support of the ventilator.

 They told me rehab would be months and I wouldn’t be taken of ANYTHING (including ECMO) for at least 3-5 months.

The next day they turned my ECMO machine off as overnight I went from 0-100. From then on day after day I had wires and tubes taken out to the point I was just on oxygen. The doctors couldn’t believe it.

Next it was lots and lots of physio as I couldn’t walk, I could hardly hold my own weight without support of the nurses. I remember taking my first few steps and my sisters being so proud of me. Every little accomplishment was something very big to me and the nurses as they were a very big part of my journey they loved seeing me get better and stronger every day

 I had such a good support around me with family visiting as often as they could and mum who visited me every single day even when I was asleep. My dad and sisters tried to visit as much as they could but they had to go back to work, which thankfully their works were very supportive during this time. I had support from people who I didn’t even know, which I am so grateful for.

 Although I had a rare and complex case due to being born with CCAM I wanted to write about my experience because if I got my symptoms checked out by my GP surgery a couple weeks earlier, this maybe could’ve been prevented. As one of the main reasons this happened was a chest infection and I left it.

Even if I raise awareness to one person that’s something because I myself had no idea what pneumonia was.

 Pneumonia is inflammation of the lungs, usually caused by an infection. Symptoms can include : A cough, high temperature, difficulty breathing, and chest pain

 I would also like to thank the doctors and nurses who worked so hard to save me! They read me stories to help me sleep, played with my hair, held my hand when I had my nightmares, painted my nails,sang me songs and always managed to make me smile. They really do go above and beyond, but most important they helped me get through the most toughest time of my life.