A student has told how she received a sinister diagnosis after being struck down by what she thought was freshers' flu.
Ketia Moponda had arrived at university just over a week earlier and presumed she had contracted one of the illnesses that were circulating.
The 19-year-old, from Wolverhampton, noticed she had a cough on 25 September last year and then began feeling unwell.
She started to feel very drowsy and decided to take some medicine to hopefully relieve her symptoms, but she woke up the following morning feeling even worse.
Advert
Ketia recalled telling a pal she felt like she was 'going to die' that evening, who ended up alerting Leicester's De Montfort University the following day when she hadn't heard from the student.
The student was found unconscious and was subsequently rushed to Leicester Royal Infirmary.
"I have no memory of any of this but I'm lucky to be alive," she said. "When I got to hospital, my blood oxygen level was at 1%.
"The blood wasn't circulating around my body and my skin was colourless. My feet were green and swollen. My organs were failing, and doctors told my family that if I woke at all I'd likely be brain dead."
Ketia was put in a coma which she woke from two days later, while she explained that she 'couldn't see or speak' when she emerged from it.
"It was a whole week before I started speaking," she said. "Most of the time I didn't know where I was."
She was then diagnosed with meningococcal septicaemia - a life-threatening blood poisoning - which can be spread from person to person through coughing and sneezing.
This then caused bacterial meningitis, a life-threatening condition, which later led to sepsis.
The skin on Ketia's fingers and feet started to shrivel and become swollen and painful, due to a lack of blood flow, and she then caught a flesh-eating bug.
Medics then informed the teenager that she would need to have both of her legs amputated just below the knee to save her life.
"Basically my legs had died because of a lack of blood going to them," Ketia said. "It was terrible. I just kept crying all the time. I felt so hurt, it was killing my spirit.
"I woke from the operation and just cried. I felt like my whole life had just begun and now I had to start all over again differently."
The marketing and advertising student underwent the gruelling operation at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham on 7 January this year.
She was strong enough to leave by the end of February and began learning how to use her prosthetic lower legs the month after.
Ketia explained she was initially attending a rehab centre and can already walk unaided now - even though it usually takes a year to get to this point.
She plans to go back to running in the gym when she can and hopes to fulfil her dream of launching a modelling career.
Speaking of her health ordeal, Ketia said: "They don't know how I got the illness - it's heartbreaking.
"I loved being active and I will be again. At first I thought I'd give up on modelling but I won't. You don't have to hide who you are.
"This doesn't make me less of a person. I am unapologetically me and I want to help others to feel confident about who they are and how they look.
"I'm very headstrong and I plan to break all the barriers of disability."
Olivia Burke