With World Sepsis Day falling on September 13, we highlight the tell-tale signs you must be aware of and speak to one woman whose brush with the infection led to life changing surgery
It was only a simple paddle in the sea on a family holiday in Crete but for Vicki Paris it changed her life.
After catching her foot on something sharp beneath the waves a slight infection set in. A month later she was battling sepsis. “It came on so quickly. Within four weeks I’d gone from having an infection in my foot to requiring amputation,” recalled the 42-year-old mum of one. And she has a stark warning about the still much misunderstood disease: “Sepsis took my leg, it almost took me; it’s frightening.”
Born in Exmouth, Devon but now living in Inverness, Vicki returned from her holiday in 2018 unaware of what was around the corner. “I noticed my cut was red, swollen and tender. I had developed a slight infection and went straight to the hospital where they decided to stick my infected foot into a plaster cast,” says Vicki who has also lived with diabetes since she was nine.
“But my health deteriorated rapidly. I was trying to work – my son was only eight at the time- and I’d gone from being able to take him to school which is only 50m across the road, to not being able to walk.” Her blood sugars too were running out of control and, taking strong painkillers, she admits some of that time is now âa blur’. “My body was unwell, my mind was unwell, and I had so many medications. I was very, very poorly.”