Our Lives
When I fell ill, I thought it was just a tummy bug. But something dangerous was lurking inside of me.
My daughter Carly-Ann ran up the beach, soaked from playing in the sea with my partner Colin’s children.
‘Mummy, we’re starving!’ she panted. ‘Can we get an ice cream?’
‘Here you are,’ I said, handing them some money.
I’d had 10 years of IVF before finally having Carly-Ann, 10, and she was the best thing that had ever happened to me.
And I loved that she got on so well with Colin’s kids.
Now, as they all tucked into their ice creams, I felt incredibly lucky.
But a week after our day at the beach, I woke in the night with my stomach churning. Running to the loo, I threw up. The next day, the sickness continued.
‘Are you OK, Mummy?’
Carly-Ann asked.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I reassured her.
‘It’s just a bug.’
But by the next morning, I was so ill that when I called my sister, Tanya, I could barely string a sentence together.
‘I’m calling an ambulance,’ she said.
Everything was a blur as I was carried out to the ambulance.
I heard a voice say: ‘Don’t worry Lisa, we’re going to get you straight in.’
The next thing I knew, I was waking up in hospital with Tanya and my parents at my bedside.
‘We’ve been so worried,’ Tanya said.
I felt confused — and then I caught sight of my hands and fingers.
They were black, except for my bright-pink acrylic nails.
‘What’s happened to me?’ I asked, terrified.
‘You had sepsis and went into septic shock,’ Dad said.
Doctors thought it had been caused by a kidney infection, and I’d ended up on life-support when my organs began to shut down.
‘They told us to prepare for the worst,’ Dad said, tears brimming.
Doctors had only given me a five per cent chance of survival, but three days on, I’d slowly started to improve.
However, the life-threatening infection had killed the tissue in my hands and feet, turning them black.
‘I want to see my feet,’ I said. It was a shock when they pulled the covers back, but my family were just so happy I was alive, and I tried to focus on that.
When Mum brought Carly-Ann to visit, I didn’t want to scare her, so I hid my hands.
‘Mummy’s going to be fine,’ I told her.
But it was overwhelming for her and she said: ‘Nanna, I feel hot. I want to go.’
After that, my parents brought in an iPad, so I could Facetime Carly-Ann every night.
‘Your fingers will eventually fall off,’ he said, and I began to cry.
In the meantime, they were going to monitor my feet.
‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ I sobbed to Colin
A few days on, a plas
