A WOMAN died suddenly months before her wedding after complaining she had a stomach ache.
Kirsten Martin, 38, fell ill last month and passed away from sepsis on January 9.
GoFundMeKirsten Martin, 38, died just months before her wedding[/caption]
Friends and family members described her as “a wonderful human being with a massive heart”.
Kirsten, from Penwortham, Lancashire, first felt pain in her tummy in mid-December.
She ploughed on as normal, but her fiancé and colleague Ant Johnson grew worried when she didn’t turn up for work one day.
A friend visited the house to check on her, and Kirsten was taken to Royal Preston Hospital, where she spent the Christmas period receiving treatment.
Her dad Allan and Ant visited her on December 25 to exchange some small gifts.
But Kirsten was soon struggling to breathe, and she was put into an induced coma on Boxing Day night.
From then, she was “up and down like a rollercoaster”, with medics predicting on January 2 she likely wouldn’t live beyond 48 hours.
But Kirsten, who had been due to get married in November, “beat the odds” and died on January 9.
Ant said her cause of death was organ failure and oxygen starvation as a result of sepsis – a life-threatening reaction to an infection.
The 43-year-old told LancsLive: “It’s just messed up how life can be taken that quickly, just from your own body going wrong.
“You never expect it do you?
“She was having problems with her belly, but me and Kirsten just thought it was woman problems and she was always putting a hot water bottle on it.”
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help raise money for her funeral.
Organiser Stuart Quinn said: “She was a wonderful human being with a massive heart and will be very sadly missed.”
The symptoms of sepsis
Any kind of infection, including flu, can cause sepsis – the body’s life-threatening response.
It can lead to shock, multiple organ failure and sometimes death, especially if it’s not recognised early and treated promptly.
Five people die with sepsis every hour in the UK.
There is no single symptom, and it can present differently in children and adults, but there are some key signs to look out for.
According to the UK Sepsis Trust, you should seek urgent medical help if you or another adult develops any of these signs:
Slurred speech or confusion
Extreme shivering or muscle pain
Passing no urine (in a day)
Severe breathlessness
It feels like you’re going to die
Skin mottled or discoloured
A kid may have sepsis if he or she:
Is breathing very fast
Has a ‘fit’
Looks mottled, bluish or pale
Has a rash that does not fade when you press it
Is very lethargic or difficult to wake
Feels abnormally cold to touch
And a child under the age of five might:
Not feed
Vomit repeatedly
Not pass urine for 12 hours