Loose Women star in terrifying A&E dash with life-threatening sepsis
LOOSE Women star Gloria Hunniford has opened up about her terrifying A&E dash with life-threatening sepsis.
Earlier this year the 82-year-old was rushed to hospital and told that she had the very serious condition.
Gloria previously had a stent placed to help drain her kidney stones when she revealed she had them in December.
However the telly star started to fell unwell and had to have a second surgery to remove it.
Recalling the moment, Gloria said: “The last thing they said before I went to theatre was: ‘When I take this stent out you are going to feel so much better’.
“But the next thing I knew coming out of the anaesthetic, was a nurse saying to me: ‘Don’t worry, don’t panic but we are having to transfer you by ambulance to a different hospital because we can’t get your blood pressure up’.”
The TV star was told that she had sepsis of the kidney when she arrived at an A&E in Maidstone, Kent.
What is sepsis?
The condition is always triggered by an infection – but it is not contagious and cannot be passed from person to person.
Most often the culprit is an infection we all recognise – pneumonia, urinary infections (UTIs), skin infections, including cellulitis, and infections in the stomach, for example appendicitis.
Typically, when a person suffers a minor cut, the area surrounding the wound will become red, swollen and warm to touch.
This is evidence the body’s immune system has kicked into action, releasing white blood cells to the site of the injury to kill off the bacteria causing the infection.
Sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to an infection.
It happens when your immune system overreacts to an infection and starts to damage your body’s tissue and organs.
She added to The Mirror: “Thankfully it hadn’t gone beyond the kidney.
“I guess that’s why I felt so awful and it did flatten me for a while.”
She was told that it could take up to six months to get her energy levels back to normal.
But luckily it was much sooner and “98%” are back.
Back in July last year Gloria left the house for the first time to return to Loose Women after suffering a horrific fall.
The broadcaster admitted she was “very worried” at hospital after breaking the bone in her eye socket in the fall which forced her to miss the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee celebrations.
Gloria credited the paramedics with preventing her from needing skin grafts.
Gloria described how she tripped on the rug at her son’s house onto “a hard wooden floor.”
“I cracked the bone under my eye… there’s a bone around the eye that holds the socket in place,” she explained.
“So, as long as the muscle holds it in place I should be ok.”