A 53-year-old gran given just hours to live is now out of hospital – after being kept alive by hero Royal Stoke doctors and nurses. Annetta Whiston – known as Netty – was admitted to the Royal Stoke University Hospital six days before Christmas with low oxygen levels and flu.
But she went on to be diagnosed with sepsis, lung failure, kidney failure and pneumonia, was placed in a coma, and was given just hours to live. She came out of the coma 17 days later.
Now the gran-of-six is out of hospital and this weekend attended a fund-raising event for the hospital’s critical care unit which saved her life. It was organised by ‘one-in-a-million’ daughter Sophie and held at the John Marston pub, in Blurton.
READ: Daughter: ‘My mum would be dead without hero Royal Stoke staff’
Netty, from Dresden, said: “I had the flu. I was just so poorly I can’t remember anything. My memory is completely blank.
“I came out of hospital about six weeks ago. I feel fine now, great. I have got kidney failure and lung failure but my lungs are now back to 90 per cent. They are still up and down.
“It is just a matter of getting stronger. I lost six stone. Initially I put on three stone and went up to 16 stone and then I came down to 10 stone. I have been putting weight back on and I am starting a 12-week physio course to regain my muscles and get fit again. I still struggle climbing the stairs.”
Netty is being supported by HGV driver partner Rob and daughter Sophie.
Netty added: “The first two weeks I came out I lived with Sophie. She looked after me and cared for me. I am grateful to everybody, especially my family. They sacrificed a lot while I was in hospital.
“I did not have the flu jab last year but I will be having it every year now. I did smoke but I have not had a cigarette since I came out. I am not smoking again, I have got to look after my lungs.
“The critical care unit was absolutely amazing. The amount of care that you get, every doctor who came past said, ‘Are you ok’. They could not do enough for me. They were amazing. And the nurses too. They were fantastic. I can’t do very much apart from give a bit of money back.
“When I was in the coma I was dreaming about people I had not seen for years. People think you sleep in a coma but you do not. I was thinking people were trying to kill me.
© Submitted Netty in hospital
“I have had different illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure before but I had never been seriously ill until this. I came close to death. A couple of times they said to my family, ‘You need to say goodbye’.
“They said they had thrown everything but the kitchen sink at me. They did not think I was going to pull through. They told Sophie and Rob, ‘You need to say goodbye’. One of the doctors was even crying when they said it. But I was not ready to go. It makes you realise how lucky I am to have family and how lucky we are to have the NHS. I want to thank everyone who attended the fund-raiser and all the doctors and nurses who saved me.”
© Stoke Sentinel Sophie Louise Filkin with her mum Annetta
Sophie had already raised more than £1,000 for the critical care unit ahead of Saturday’s event.
The 32-year-old mum-of-six, from Longton, said: “Mum was in critical care for six weeks. We thought we were going to lose her. We can’t thank the staff enough, they were amazing. She means so much to us all.
“I won’t let her smoke any more. She is now a lot more positive and has a different outlook on life. She is a lot happier. She knows she is being given a second chance and is grabbing it with two hands.
“It was traumatising the first night she was in critical care. I had to walk out because I had a massive panic attack. I could not see her like that. I used to watch the stat monitor in case it stopped. I had to go in and out.
“Three times the doctors took us to the family room and told us to say our goodbyes. I could not speak to her. I used to talk to her in my head.”
But there came a time when Netty began to improve.
Sophie added: “She was strong enough to have a tracheostomy. They won’t give it unless you are strong enough. Every day she just got better and better. One day we turned up and she was sitting up in a chair – after 17 days in a coma. It took a while for her to come round because she was delirious but she got there in the end. We are all really trying to look after her. We tell each other we love each other more than we did before.”
Sophie hopes to raise more than £2,000 for the critical care unit.
She added: “It was not just how they were with my mum, it was how they were with me. They would play with my youngest daughter while I saw my mum. They let her listen to my mum’s heart. It was how they interacted with all of us. We just want to say thank you.”
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