Nurse walks down the aisle with prosthetics after losing both legs to sepsis

SWNS

A nurse who lost her legs to sepsis was able to walk down the aisle with her dad on her wedding day - using new prosthetics.  Karen Paget, 59, also lost fingers on both hands and had to learn to walk again.  She started to feel unwell with flu-like symptoms after returning from a holiday in Wales in July 2018.   Three days later, she took a turn for the worse and her partner Lyndon rushed her to Derriford Hospital where she worked as a nurse.   She lost her limbs but has now walked down the aisle on her wedding day using new prosthetic legs.

Transcript

00:00They said, this is really serious, you need to call family because it's, it's very,

00:19we all said our goodbyes and off we went.

00:24I thought it was over, I didn't realise it was just the beginning.

00:30I decided that it was so hot that I would go downstairs, stood up and felt quite breathless

00:36and a little bit panicky and actually at that point felt that I was going to die, thought

00:41my God this is it, I don't know what's quite happening to me, so we decided to go to Derriford.

00:45One of the doctors came down from intensive care and just said, oh I think you've got

00:48sepsis Karen.

00:49And I had a tender abdomen and they thought I should go for surgery.

00:54I had a phone call in the early hours of the morning to say that it had been successful.

01:02They take part of my bowel out and I've got a stoma because they thought it was Crohn's

01:06disease.

01:07My kidneys failed so I had to have dialysis.

01:10At this point when I woke up my fingers were black and my legs were not black but discoloured.

01:18I had what they call a septic shower, which is all the symptoms of sepsis, as in your

01:23low blood pressure, your high pulse rate, all of the symptoms just in a short space

01:30of time.

01:31Registrar Sophie came along, how was your night, oh yeah not too bad, had a bit of a

01:36septic shower you know.

01:37Next thing I know she's back with Commander Paré and he just looked at me and said right,

01:42he said that I'm going to have to come off.

01:45Karen made it so easy because she was patient with us and the silly things that we were

01:52doing and saying and carried us all along.

01:56He's my rock, he's said it all along and he's my soulmate, you're going to make me cry now.

02:03No he's my soulmate and has been for a very long time.

02:07I was discharged at the end of September and then at the middle part of October they started

02:15with this hand and then in the January, this finger here, it became really tight and really

02:25painful, quite swollen at the bottom, so they decided that okay we'll do this one.

02:30And then we started Thornbury.

02:32She was very positive with her attitude to getting back to walking.

02:38The prosthetist made her really comfortable limbs and she progressed month by month and

02:45yeah her attitude to physio was really, really good.

02:49Karen would always tell us what she wanted and that's what we would work towards to achieve

02:57her goals and her outcomes.

02:59I was told initially that I probably wouldn't walk probably for a year.

03:03Oh no, no, no, I said I'd do that in nine months, thank you.

03:06And we achieved that.

03:07She's a strong person, she's inspirational, one of the best.

03:17We've been together for 16 years and we decided to get married.

03:21I was a bit impatient, waiting, but it was lovely.

03:25It was a long time coming and something I'd wanted for a long time.

03:30Everybody was very emotional.

03:31I think a lot of the family were emotional because we got to that point that I could

03:35walk down the aisle.

03:44It just made me feel emotional because of how far Karen's come.

03:49To see her so, so happy on her wedding day was amazing.

03:53To thank the Thornbury staff, we got our relatives, families, friends to donate some money as

04:00a wedding present and we presented the cheque to Thornbury today.

04:05When she told me your story, that was so difficult for anyone to cope with and then

04:11the fact that you got married and the selfless act of making the donation to the Thornbury

04:16Centre was so special.

04:18Don't because you'll make me cry.

04:22It's just a little bit of a thank you.

04:23It's not huge, but it's a little bit of a thank you and I hope because we've done

04:27that they know how we feel about them.

04:29They are an absolutely amazing team, they do amazing things here and they give people

04:34their lives back.

04:35They really do.

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