Amy Pohl’s life was turned upside down after a botched cannula left her arm in excruciating pain, she then suffered a terrifying experience of waking up paralysed
Amy Pohl was left screaming in pain, “begging doctors” to amputate her arm after a botched cannula became infected, but further challenges lay ahead after she woke up from an operation unable to move her lower body.
The 31 year old, who lives in County Durham, Hartlepool, was enjoying a career as a primary school teacher when she became “quite unwell” in 2017. She was taken to hospital and was later diagnosed with adult croup, a respiratory infection that causes swelling in the upper airway, a virus commonly affecting children. During her time in hospital, Amy was given a cannula but claimed a doctor “failed to insert it properly” when it was due to be changed. Speaking exclusively to OK! Amy said: “He tried to put it in my right arm first, then took it out and tried in my left, he then moved onto my hand.”
Amy said her dad attempted to say to the doctor, “You should be changing the cannula, right?” but claimed the doctor “got quite annoyed” and told her dad to “leave the room”. Reflecting back on this, Amy explained: “When you’re in that situation, I just felt like, he’s a doctor, he must know what he’s doing, and I was so unwell, I wasn’t really in the right space to say anything. Looking back on it, of course, I wish I did.”
The doctor eventually found a vein in Amy’s left hand, but within the next 48 hours, her hand started to become “very red and spreading up her arm” due to an infection. She was put on antibiotics to treat the infection and after recovering from croup was sent home. However, Amy’s hand got worse with “swelling and sores”, and after numerous hospital visits, she was eventually diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). “I couldn’t even open a window or go outside because even the slightest breeze would cause immense pain,” Amy shared.
“It was painful, every minute of every day – I was screaming and begging doctors to amputate my arm. The only way I can describe it, it’s like your bones are constantly going through a meat grinder, the pain is so deep,” Amy said. She explained that there’s “no cure” for CRPS and the pain can go “up and down”, with Amy still suffering from pain today but thankfully, it’s “nowhere near to the level it used to be”.
In May 2018, and during the early days of her CRPS diagnosis, Amy sadly tried to take her own life. “It’s known as the suicide disease, and I had no hope for the future anymore. I just thought that was it, I’m just going to live a life of pain,” she shared. A few months later in September, the infection in Amy’s hand returned, and she underwent a four-hour operation. Tragically, when she woke up, she was left unable to move her lower body, which she described as “absolutely terrifying”.
She recounted: “I was misdiagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder (FND) and I was told my movement would come back. I was lying in a hospital bed for about a year, and then I moved into a rehab unit in 2019. They spent the whole time working on my legs and getting them moving again, but nothing worked.” Amy said she was constantly told, ‘You can do it, you can move your legs, you’re not trying hard enough,’ which she admitted became difficult to hear repeatedly. The misdiagnosis of FND meant that both Amy and her healthcare team were unaware of her actual paralysis.
It was later discovered that Amy’s body doesn’t properly absorb nutrients, leading to spinal damage. Additionally, Amy was born with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a condition affecting connective tissue, which made her unusually flexible growing up, only diagnosed after the severe cannula infection. She reflected on the uncertainty surrounding her lower body’s condition and said: “It’s hard to know if the infection from the cannula didn’t happen if I would still be paralysed today. It’s likely that triggered the onset, but it might have happened at some point anyway because my body can’t absorb vitamins and minerals the way that it should.”
Amy has adapted to life with a wheelchair, amassing a massive social media following as she shares her disability journey and crafts humorous videos of her daily experiences. Defiant in the face of adversity, Amy is on a mission to embrace an array of activities; she’s dived into sit-down waterskiing, braved abseiling down a cliff while seated in her wheelchair, enjoyed horse riding, zoomed along ziplines and recently embarked on her inaugural flight as a wheelchair user.
Battling through mental health challenges, Amy divulged: “Mindset is such a big thing, I just started thinking, stop fighting yourself and start fighting for yourself. So, I stopped blaming myself for things that had happened, for not speaking up and stopped staying in bed all day because I was in pain. Instead, go out, just fight for your life and have a good time.” She champions this empowering philosophy to her extensive fanbase on TikTok and Instagram, committed to not letting anything restrict her. Keep up with more of Amy’s adventures on her TikTok @amyepohl and Instagram @amy_pohl.
If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this story you can contact Samaritans in the UK and Ireland on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie
