A MUM had to have all four limbs amputated after catching flu.
Kristin Fox is now issuing a chilling winter plea so no other family has to endure the same torment.
The 42-year-old first noticed something wasn’t right in March 2020.
She fell ill with a sore throat and was later diagnosed as having influenza – a common infectious viral illness spread by coughs and sneezes.
Kristin, who had received her flu jab months earlier, was given some medication and told to get some rest, but the next day she could barely move.
“I felt like I was dying,” she told Fox News.
A friend whisked her off to the nearest hospital where she was put on a ventilator and told she had developed bacterial pneumonia, which was causing her organs to fail.
Her kidneys were allegedly shutting down and one of her lungs had collapsed.
She then entered septic shock – when the blood pressure drops to a dangerously low level after an infection.
Kristen was put into a medically induced coma and it was “touch and go” for the following week.
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Doctors then told her relatives they needed to act fast and amputated both her legs below the knee.
Two weeks later, her arms were amputated at the elbow.
Kristin, from Campbell, Ohio, US, woke up “so confused” but recovered quickly and was discharged on May 17.
Due to the pandemic, her children, aged nine and six at the time, hadn’t seen her so they had no idea what to expect when she returned home.
“I hadn’t told my kids about losing my arms and legs so they literally wrapped me up like a mummy because I didn’t want them to see,” she said.
“Between that and Covid, it was so much for them to get their minds around.”
The mum-of-two then completed 12 weeks of physical therapy before getting prosthetics.
She now uses sets from a Florida-based organisation called 50 Legs.
Sometimes I catch myself complaining, but then I remind myself that my kids could have been mourning my death.
Kristin Fox
Adapting to her new life has been hard, but Kristin is slowly learning how to do everything again from exercise to driving.
The assistant headteacher said: “Sometimes I catch myself complaining, but then I remind myself that my kids could have been mourning my death.
“They’re 12 and 10 now, and I can’t imagine them living without me.”
She and her community are now urging people to get vaccinated and brush up on the symptoms of sepsis, as what happened to Kristin could happen to anyone.
“I can’t go back and change [things], I can only hope to be an advocate for the future,” she said.
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