A mum-of-two said her young boys were left traumatised after they saw her nearly die – she is now raising awareness for the horror infection she faced
A young mum almost died in bed in front of her children – when a ‘winter flu’ turned out to be a deadly infection.
Roberta Alisauskaite, 27, started to feel “under the weather” in October but brushed it off as a cold she could have caught from work. While Roberta had flu-like symptoms, the mum claimed she also suffered an abscess in one of her wisdom teeth and was taking antibiotics to help the swelling. The 27-year-old said her condition started to deteriorate over the next few days as she started to cough, shake and saw her temperature skyrocket.
At first, the mental health nurse said she wasn’t worried and “powered through” looking after her two boys but this changed on October 20 – because she was actually battling sepsis.
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The mum, from Carmarthenshire in South West Wales, said: “I was originally under the weather and it felt like cold-like flu symptoms.
“On Monday, I woke up and I was really flushed and I was so hot, my whole face was covered in sweat and I wasn’t wearing anything other than a t-shirt. I was really cold and I put the heating on. My body then went into what I now was septic shock.
“I was wrapped up in bed with the heating on but I was shaking. It made me go a bit delirious. I stripped myself off and went in a cold shower to cool off as I felt like I was burning. [When my neighbour dropped my kids off], I told them I was going to lie down upstairs and told my kids to come and chill on the bed with me.”
Roberta revealed how her sons Sean Haughey, 8, and Koby Haughey, 6, realised she was slurring her words and then became unresponsive, so they jumped into action to save her life.
She added: “My eldest son was asking if I was okay and I was unresponsive. He rang 999 and told them ‘mummy wasn’t well’ and then I don’t remember the rest. My mum came home and took over the call and we were told the ambulance wait was three hours [so she took me to hospital]. My mum said she couldn’t watch her daughter die in front of her eyes.”
According to the UK Sepsis Trust UK, sepsis is a medical emergency and knowing the signs and acting fast can save lives. There is no single sign of sepsis but spotting symptoms in adults can show as slurred speech, extreme shivering, breathlessness, muscle pain and confusion.
In hospital, she also underwent a chest x-ray, CT scan and an ultrasound to try and find the source of her infection but claims doctors couldn’t locate it. But since being discharged from hospital on October 23, she claimed her consultant said the combination of her ‘cold’ or ‘Covid-type flu’ and her tooth may have been the cause of the infection but this has not been confirmed.
Roberta revealed the impact the horrifying ordeal has had on her boys, saying: “[In hospital] I rang my mum and I asked how the boys were. She said both my boys were traumatised as they tried to wake me up.
“I was extremely hot to touch but I was feeling cold. They said when they tried to put a cannula in I was so hot to touch it felt like their gloves were burning. When they took my temperature in the hospital I was at 40.2. I was so scared to fall asleep in case I didn’t wake up this time.
Roberta is now raising awareness of the signs and symptoms of sepsis to warn others that their winter flu or cold could be a sign of something more serious.
The mum-of-two said: “I’ve always been very grateful for my health and being as fit as I am but you don’t take enough gratitude for it until something like this springs up on you, especially when you’re a parent with small children. I want to ensure, especially this time of year, that colds and flu due to the natural changes and the temperature, could be something else.
“As mum’s we just get on with it as we have our children to look after. We always power through. If I was left any longer, I could have died. It’s hard to look back on because that day could have ended very differently, had I not been aware [of sepsis symptoms].”
