A former Team GB triathlete tragically lost all of her limbs to a heartbreaking illness that started with a common cold.
Lily McGarry was studying to become a doctor at Cardiff University when she became ill in January of this year, putting her sore throat and temperature down to a common cold.
However, after a week her symptoms were persisting and the 23-year-old was going about her life normally, as she entered the third year of her medical degree and needed to study, but by midnight things had become significantly worse.
Lily, who had become violently ill and lost control of her bowel and bladder, said: "I was very weak and achy, and I hadn’t realised that I had been incontinent."
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Fortunately, living with two other medical students meant that they recognised her symptoms as serious and she was taken to A&E, something which undoubtedly saved her life.
By the time they arrived at hospital, a rash had spread across Lily's stomach, she and her friends immediately recognised as a potential symptom of sepsis, a life-threatening reaction to an infection where the body's immune system damages its own tissues and organs.
Lily recalled: "We’re told in medical school to be very cautious of non-blanching-rashes. I remember pressing down on my tummy and the rash wasn’t disappearing. I was worried about this, so my friends alerted the staff, who took my blood pressure. It was incredibly low, which is another sign of sepsis.”
The student went on to suffer two cardiac arrests and was placed into an induced coma to keep her alive, with her parents in disbelief how their active daughter's illness had progressed so quickly.
Once she woke, the medical student was relatively pragmatic about the need to have her limbs amputated, due to the risk of them poisoning her body from within.
She said: “Essentially, the tissue is dying, so it poses more of a risk to the rest of your body. The safest thing to do was to amputate my legs and arms.”
After being moved to a hospital in Swansea, doctors removed her arms and legs, and were shocked by how much of her limbs was dead, meaning they had to operate twice.
Lily is now undergoing intense physiotherapy to help her manage but her life will never be the same, and her family have managed to raise close to £500k through a GoFundMe page which will help her buy a more accessible car, bedroom and hopefully some advanced prosthetic limbs in the future.
She added: “I don’t feel how I look. I hope that people see me for who I was before. My personality is the same as it was. I’m afraid of people thinking I’m frail or vulnerable. But I’m like, ‘No. I’m still me. Ignore my arms and legs. I’m just me.'
“I’m lucky that my body has recovered like this, even though it’s kind of ironic to say that as an amputee. I’m filled with hope because I’ve got wonderful family and friends supporting me. They really keep me going.”
James Moorhouse