A wife and mother who thought she had a cold ended up in a COMA with doctors telling her family to say goodbye – but pulled through to make a full recovery.
Shocking photos show Jill Trewick, 43, on a life support machine – the last image her husband Andy thought he would take of her.
Nurses and doctors told Andy that Jill would not make it through the night as she had pneumonia and septicaemia.
Her symptoms had started as a simple cold – but her health deteriorated rapidly.
But the mother-of-two was determined to see her family again and made a miraculous recovery despite being put in an induced coma when her kidneys failed.
The cause of her rapid deterioration is still not clear but she has bounced back to full health and is about to start work as a Weight Watchers leader.
“I couldnt walk, and it was such a struggle to get up and down stairs. I still don’t know what caused it,” she said.
“It was very traumatic for my family, and I didn’t see my children for a month, because we didn’t want them to see me in hospital, and I missed Daniel’s fifth birthday.
“I try not to think about what could have happened and just take it one day at a time, and every day since I’ve come home from hospital, I’ve felt better and better.
“I’ve had hundreds of get well soon cards and my family have been amazing. They didn’t know if I was going to recover.”
Jill, who lives in Silksworth and is also mum to Anna, four, explains how she first went to the doctors with what she thought might be a chest infection.
“I did feel really crap, it was on my chest. I don’t often go to the doctors,” she said.
“But I thought ‘I can beat this’ and didn’t actually take my antibiotics as the doctor said he was reluctant to give them to me anyway for a chest infection.
“But the pain in my left chest got so much worse that I went back to the doctor and kept having to go back to bed. That’s so unlike me.”
“About two weeks after I first went to the doctor my son found me crying and propped up in bed having not slept and called Andy. His parents rushed over and called 999.
“When Andy called his parents later his dad said ‘They’re working on her’, which was the worst thing he could say. And then when he got to hospital he was told to say goodbye to me.'”
An ambulance took Jill to the critical care unit at Sunderland’s Royal Hospital, where she spent three weeks.
Andy, who works as an electrician in Liverpool, hurried down to be at her bedside, but they decided the children should not see her in the state she was in.
She was later transferred to Newcastle’s Freeman Hospital where she was put in an induced coma and had her lung drained.
“The hospitals were just brilliant, I wouldn’t be here without them.”
