Amy Dowden has revealed she came close to dying after falling into septic shock during her first round of chemotherapy amid her battle with stage three breast cancer.
The Strictly Come Dancing professional dancer, 33, says she became “unresponsive” and her family were warned that she would not be able to function for more than 16 hours before her organs began to fail.
Speaking on Andy Coulson's Crisis What Crisis? podcast, the Welsh star explained that she was rushed to hospital by ambulance after she collapsed at home following her treatment last year.
Dowden said she felt “scared” about going to hospital because she had been injected with bone marrow that morning and had “no white blood cells”, meaning there was a higher risk of her picking up an infection.
After being “encouraged” to get checked out, she took “a turn”.
She was admitted immediately with an infection with her family around her, but later doctors assured them she could go home.
However, the following morning when Dowden’s husband Ben Jones called the hospital to see how his wife was doing, he was told: “The doctor wants to speak to you.”
Mr Jones was with Dowden’s parents at the time and put the doctor on speaker phone.
Her parents “broke to the floor” upon being told their daughter had sepsis because her aunt had died of the blood infection just a year earlier. The doctor also revealed she had a blood clot on her lung and was “unresponsive” to treatment.
Dowden said: “My parents went into meltdown mode, Ben went into protection mode of them, and when they got to the hospital I wasn’t in the room.
“I was having an emergency CT scan and the doctor had just said to my - my mum had to walk away.
“My husband said that he’d said my heart rate and my blood pressure was so low that I probably wouldn’t function more than sixteen hours, my organs would go into failure. They felt I’d gone into septic shock.”
Thankfully, Dowden turned a corner after her body responded to new antibiotics.
Waking up to discover her nearest and dearest around her, she said: “I saw the pain in my parents’ eyes, and I don’t think they’ve been the same since.
“It was so tough for them to have watched that, especially after what we’d been through with my auntie. And yes, I don’t think they’ve been same or never will be the same again.”
Last month, Dowden shared the miracle news that there was "no evidence of disease", which she said were "words I dreamed of”.
On Instagram, she told her fans: "My biggest accomplishment yet! I won't be getting the all-clear for 5 years, especially with a hormone fed cancer. But it was all worth it. Words I never thought I'd hear at one point.
“So grateful for all the care I received and continue to have. To my family and friends who supported me unconditionally and to you guys! Thank you! "
