Four days before her collapse, 'superfit' Katie, who had been teaching 13 fitness classes a week, visited her GP with 'shivering, bad muscle aches and just a general feeling of being unwell'. 'The GP told me to go home and drink Lucozade,' she says and, reassured, she did. It's advice she wishes she'd ignored.
Not only as she might then have avoided spending three months in hospital, but also because Katie, like thousands of others in the UK, still suffers life-changing after-effects — known as post-sepsis syndrome — seven years on.
The syndrome causes long-term effects that can be physical (from profound fatigue and joint or muscle pain, to hair and tooth loss); to cognitive (such as brain fog and memory problems); and psychological (with sleeping problems, flashbacks and nightmares not uncommon).
'Physically and mentally, I am a changed person,' she says. 'I used to be constantly on the go. I was the life of the party and would sign up for any charity triathlon going. 'Holidays involved skiing or coasteering. Now all that has stopped. All I can do is walk, at a slow, frustrating pace for everyone else.' She also lives with permanent fatigue and bad brain fog.
