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.
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.
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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.