A mother has been told she has less than a year left to live if she’s unable to have a bowel transplant, after a caesarean birth went wrong.
Kelsie McHugh, 30, was having an emergency C-section to give birth to her daughter Renae, now 18 months, when surgeons accidentally sliced a 20cm cut in her bladder.
It caused blood and bowel poisoning resulting in intestinal failure and she is now unable to absorb fluids.
The teaching assistant from Oldham, Greater Manchester in the UK, has been told she needs a bowel transplant, and only has about a year to live if she doesn’t have the surgery.
“I’m just hoping and praying that I can get to the top of (the transplant) list soon because I’ve got a little baby who needs her mum in her life,” McHugh said.
“It’s so hard to stay strong because it’s out of my control, and that’s the worst bit.
“When I got told about the 12 months, I said all I wanted to do is focus on my family and make memories.
“Not getting the transplant plays on my mind a lot but my husband doesn’t want to think about it.”
McHugh — who is married to Danny, 39 — gave birth to Renae when she was 31 weeks pregnant and had a cardiac arrest just less than an hour after she was born.
After constantly being in and out of hospital and having two stomas fitted because of complications with her bladder, she was diagnosed with multiple organ failure.
She has been fitted with a TPN machine — which is used when all or part of a person’s digestive system does not work.
She will need the machine for the rest of her life, which may not be long.
“I have six glucose bags, which have different nutrition in,” McHugh said.
“Then I have what I call a fat bag, which has the same nutrition in but not as much glucose.
“I can eat but only for the taste because I don’t get anything from food now.
“It’s awful because I used to be an absolute foodie who loved all different types of food.
“If I am hungry then I will eat but if I eat a full meal then I will just dehydrate myself straight away.
“I’m also restricted to just a litre of fluid a day and I can’t go over that.
“It’s exhausting to be on top of everything.”
While she was in hospital, McHugh was put on fluids which left her “unable to get out of bed without help”.
She has had to re-learn how to walk, which she said was “just awful” because she couldn’t even put her feet on the floor at one point.
“I had to go on fluids so I put so much weight on, but it was all fluid retention,” McHugh said.
“I couldn’t even get out of bed without help.
“I had to use a (walking) frame and had two people to help me get to the toilet and it was literally three steps from my bed but it took me 10 minutes to get there.
“That was just awful — I had to have physiotherapy as I couldn’t put my feet down on the floor.
“If I went on my feet, I had to go on my tiptoes because it was too painful to stretch my legs out because I had been in bed for so long.”
McHugh, who was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis when she was younger, has now decided to start a bucket list of cthings she wants to do.
This includes meeting Geordie Shore star and influencer Charlotte Crosby, singing with Adele, creating a music video, feeding a baby goat and visiting a spa.
“I’ve always said I want to do 30 things in my 30s because my life expectancy is slightly less because I have cystic fibrosis, former singer McHugh said.
“Now I’ve been given the 12 months, I want to make as many memories as possible.
“There’s so many things. I want to meet and sing with Adele and then go on a trip to a log cabin with a hot tub because I just want to chill out with no worries.
“There’s also really random things like going to the zoo or going go karting because I haven’t done that before.
“I also can’t work but my husband will eventually need a lot of time off to look after Renae if I have the transplant.
“If things don’t go the way we hope they do, I want him to be able to take bereavement time off work to look after Renae.”
