Grandmother told she would lose use of legs due to E.coli infection ‘eating her spine’

Maureen Clement, 73, from Farnborough, collapsed on the day of her Golden Wedding Anniversary and later discovered she had an E.coli infection

Maureen Clement on holiday (Collect/PA Real Life).

A grandmother who was told she would lose the use of both of her legs after she developed an E.coli infection which was “eating her spine” and subsequently turned into sepsis has made a miraculous recovery and is now planning to travel to Australia to see her son.

On the morning of June 27 2020, Maureen Clement, 73, from Farnborough, in Hampshire, was excited to have some champagne for breakfast with her husband, David, 73, to celebrate 50 years of marriage together – their Golden Wedding Anniversary.

But what should have been a “special day” soon turned into a nightmare, as Maureen suddenly collapsed in the bathroom. She said it was “really frightening”.

Maureen said: “I went up to the bathroom and I then said to David, ‘okay, we’ll have some champagne for breakfast when I come down’, but I didn’t come down because I fell off the toilet.

“It seems quite funny now, but of course (it wasn’t at the time). My knees buckled underneath me, which made it worse.

“Anyway, I got an ambulance, and I was taken straight away to Frimley Park Hospital, and I stayed in there and they couldn’t understand what was wrong.”

She explained that doctors gave her “all sorts of antibiotics” and completed various tests and X-rays, and they initially thought she may have a urinary tract infection (UTI).

Maureen, who is now retired but used to work in admin, remained in hospital for several weeks, but was then sent home as doctors thought she may have constipation.

Days later, Maureen was in “terrible pain” and she and David visited a locum doctor after calling 111 who called an ambulance for her to go straight back to Frimley Park Hospital.

“The pain was so severe,” Maureen explained. “I’ve never been worried about pain, but it was worse than childbirth.

“It was like nerves just touching each other all the time, it was so, so painful.”

Maureen then spent an agonising five months in hospital, undergoing further tests, before receiving the news that she had an E.coli infection, and she later developed sepsis.

She said: “That infection had reached my spine and it was starting to attack the spine. It was digging straight into it; it was literally eating my spine.”

Maureen was in excruciating pain and unable to move, and she was told that the only chance of regaining some function was to undergo an operation.

But there was a huge risk, as she was told the operation could leave her paralysed from the waist down.

Maureen said: “It was awful, very depressing, and I was thinking, well, where’s my life going? I want to do things, I’m still young, really, and you know, I want to travel and see my son in Australia.

“I thought, what the heck, I’m going to be stuck in bed forever.”

Maureen Clement on holiday (Collect/PA Real Life).

Maureen made the difficult decision to have the operation and risk losing the use of her legs.

David, who is also retired but used to work as an aeronautical engineer for the Civil Aviation Authority, was even told two or three times that “she wasn’t going to make it through the night”.

But, more than two years later, Maureen, who is a mum-of-two, is beginning to regain her independence and the ability to walk unsupported once more.

She has even travelled to Lanzarote with David and is planning more trips abroad, including a holiday to Australia to visit her youngest son, Philip, 46, who lives there.

Maureen is now looking to the future with great hope about what more she can achieve, and is delighted that she can start planning a trip to Australia to visit her son Philip and his family – something that would have been unimaginable for her just a short while ago.

She added: “To be planning these trips now is incredible and after all we’ve been through, it’s more important than ever that I get to see them.”