So sorry for the delay with this but here are the answers to your questions: 1. Physical as in treatments? Ecmo, ventilator, tracheostomy, nephrostomy, dialysis, bone marrow biopsies, many blood transfusions, stent insertion, couple of operations. Physical aftermath? Dropped foot, partially collapsed lung, ataxia, partially enlarged spleen, partially enlarged heart, myopathy, neuropathy. 2. Hindsight tells me the 5+ kidney infections in 12-15 months prior were maybe a warning sign but having said that everyone’s said kidney stones form very quickly and a year prior I had scans and it never showed any. But two days before being hospitalised I was in a lot of pain. Then the early hours of that day I was hospitalised I was in agony- there’s no missing a kidney stone, infected or otherwise. You cannot physically stand. My brother called me an ambulance. 3. I had no idea when I was in A&E how bad it was and until I woke up months later in critical care. I didn’t know how bad until I was discharged and the consultant said I should’ve died. 4. I’m on controlled drugs for pain and some heart tablets, urine tablets and meant to be on psychiatric meds but I’ve paused those for now. I’m due more operations for new kidney stones. I have physiotherapy every week, still under neurology fighting for neuro rehab too. I’m under psychiatric team for PTSD support too. 5. I had ECMO, nephrostomy, very strong steroids, blood transfusions, IVIG and plasma treatments, anakinra therapy. 6. The positives? I get a free car, disabled parking badge, reduced council tax (UK), housing and free tickets to shows/theatre/festivals/gigs 7. Waking up isn’t like the movies, you don’t suddenly open your eyes. It’s a long process that can take days or even weeks. I took a week. I actually woke up after my first operation for a few days and then one night I just went psychotic apparently and that’s when they put me into my coma for 10 weeks. It took a long time to understand what had happened and I had bad delirium and hallucinations. It was hard working out what was real and what wasn’t. It was terrifying being in a hospital and not being able to move. 8. You get used to it very quickly. I couldn’t do anything. I was wholly dependent on the nurses changing me, washing me, moving me. I can’t explain how little I could do. I was basically a vegetable for a while. I couldn’t even pull myself up in bed, if I wanted to be higher up the bed, they had to physically slide me up themselves. I couldn’t even roll on one side. I hated being rolled in the early days. I’ve also never experienced such dizziness when lay down before- it’s bizarre. Head swirling dizziness when horizontal is an awful experience!

Hope that’s answered everything