A mum who thought she was suffering backache while building toys on Christmas Day woke up in 2022 to be told she needed all four limbs amputated.
Sadie Kemp, 34, had been laughing and enjoying her festive dinner with her family just hours before she collapsed in agonising pain.
When she came round, it was a new year and doctors told her she had gone into septic shock from a kidney stone, causing the skin on her arms and legs to become necrotic.
The mum from Peterborough, has been dubbed a medical miracle for surviving the ordeal - and continued to baffle doctors when the tissue on her arms started to heal.
Sadie told the Mirror : “I was eating my Christmas dinner at 2.30pm with my family and having a laugh and by 5pm I was fighting for my life.
“I had decided to build a play kitchen I had bought for my youngest son.
“I thought my back was hurting from bending over and putting all the screws in but then my back pain got worse.
“I said I was going to go for a bath but half an hour later I was screaming in pain on the floor saying I felt like someone was squeezing my kidney.”
Sadie was rushed to A&E where they gave her pain relief and advised her to come back if the pain got any worse, but by the early hours of Boxing Day she was back and collapsed in front of doctors.
She continued: “I woke up from a two-week stint on life support.
“They had been pumping me full of medicines to keep my organs alive but the limbs furthest away had suffered.
“There was no blood supply to my arms and legs and the tissue had started to die.
“At first they told me they were going to take all four limbs but as the days went on the skin started to heal.”
Sepsis is a life-threatening condition whereby tissue and organs begin to die or become necrotic as the body tries to respond to another infection affecting the immune system.
Despite the amazing news that the sepsis had started to retreat, Sadie’s hands were already too damaged to save and doctors at Peterborough City Hospital have decided to amputate all 10 fingers.
Her hands will now be sewn inside her stomach to keep the remaining tissue alive while surgeons make a similar decision about whether to amputate her feet or both her legs from below the knee.
Sadie - who was working as a Covid track and trace officer for the government driving all over the UK - has had to pack in her job as her life-changing injuries mean she can no longer drive.
And after going through an expensive divorce, she has been living in a home provided by a charity with her two sons, Kenzie, 16, and Hendrix, two.
But after this latest ordeal, the mum says she has also been left without a home, as she claims she is now classed as ‘disabled’ and no longer eligible for the house because it has stairs.
She 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.”
Now Sadie’s friends and family have set up a GoFundMe to help her find a permanent place to stay for her and her boys when she is finally able to leave hospital.
Despite the uphill battle the determined mum is a fighter and insists she will do ‘everything in her power’ to get through her recovery for her two boys and new partner, Lewis, who has stayed by her side through it all.
She said: “When I first woke up I told my mum she should have turned off the life support.
“But she said ‘would I rather my kids visit me at my hospital bed or at my grave’.
“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.
“I feel like a force to be reckoned with, and like a warrior.
“I wouldn’t be here without the amazing support of the doctors and my friends and family so now I am determined to get through it for them.”
