Lying in her hospital bed with barely the strength to walk, Joanne McCauley was told she was lucky to be alive.
The mum-of-two was left hours from death due to an undetected perforation of the bowel which was slowly leaking through her body.
It was subsequently causing infection, the appendix to implode, and a litre abscess to develop. The family were told if she had gone home to lie down, she would not have woken up.
