‘I woke up one morning with what felt like a really badly sprained back,’remembers Amani, recalling her first encounter with sepsis in 2020.

‘I thought I’d somehow pulled a muscle, but I also felt quite delirious and unusually unwell.’

The 37-year-old, from Bristol, has since survived the life-threatening condition six times, each caused by a urinary tract infection (UTI).

She didn’t immediately sound the alarm on that first February morning, having suffered from chronic illness since a water sports accident that impacted her bladder in 2011.

She took her temperature and noted it was 40°C, but, not wanting to cause a fuss, she resisted calling NHS 111 for a further two days.

The call operator immidiately sent an ambulance to her flat, ignoring her protests that she didn’t need one.

‘Unfortunately, when you live with severe chronic illness, you are used to living with such extreme and completely debilitating symptoms every day, so I pushed through my intense and scary symptoms for a couple of days,’ she says.

‘I remember feeling like something really bad was about to happen – an impending sense of doom – which I later learnt was actually a symptom of sepsis and has been a symptom of it every time I have had sepsis since.’

Amani’s experience with chronic illness began in her twenties, when she was working as a coasteering instructor in 2011.

The sport involves cliff jumping and sea swimming, but an accident left her with Cauda Equina (a condition impacting the nerves in the lower spine), and subsequent neurogenic bladder, where she struggled to pass urine and had to use catheters.

When Amani first got sepsis in 2020, she was intermittently self-catheterising up to 30 times a day, which greatly increases the risk of UTIs.

Approximately 30% of all sepsis cases are due to urosepsis, a medical emergency where an infection of the urinary tract spreads to the bloodstream.

‘When I was then taken into resus at the nearest hospital, they told me if I had actually denied the ambulance, I would have died in my sleep,’ she says.

‘I was only two hours away from dying when I got to them.’

Amani was treated with IV antibiotics, fluids, and pain relief.

She was also given IV fluid to help her kidneys function properly again, but her lungs took on fluid and she became really unwell from that, too.

‘I don’t remember much of the hours and days that followed, because I was so unwell,’ Amani says. ‘Eventually, after a few weeks of being in hospital, I was discharged home.’

Each time she’s had sepsis, the transition of coming home has been ‘really hard’ for Amani, who lives alone.

‘From my experience of surviving sepsis, and that of the many people I have connected with that have also survived sepsis, it can leave a lot to process in its wake and after you have survived it,’ she says.

‘Once you are home, ‘normal life’ continues around you, yet you nearly died and have so many emotions to process. It can feel incredibly isolating.’

An extra challenge for Amani is that despite being a repeat sufferer of sepsis, she often has to spot symptoms presenting differently.

‘This is important, because sepsis can be so sneaky and can develop so quickly – for example my fourth time of having sepsis, in 2024, I had been admitted to hospital for a kidney infection.

‘When I arrived, I was only mildly unwell, so they kept me in the corridor for observation and to await treatment, but within an hour I developed a 40°C temperature and started vomiting, and passing out.

‘I had suddenly become seriously unwell, and was rushed through to receive IV antibiotics, with sepsis again.’

Repeat cases haven’t made sepsis any easier. In fact, Amani says she’s ‘got more scared’ with each diagnosis, because she understands how bad the condition can get, and how dangerous it is.

The writer and artist now works with the charity Sepsis Research FEAT, helping raise awareness for the work and research they do, as well as the general signs of Sepsis.

Although her own symptoms have always varied slightly, they have included a high or low temperature, vomiting and severe nausea, confusion and feeling delirious, an impending sense of doom, chills and shivering, feeling very systemically unwell, shaking uncontrollably, shortness of breath or breathing faster than usual, a rapid heart rate; feeling exhausted and sleeping too much or being unable to rouse properly.

She now also suffers with Post-Sepsis Syndrome (PSS) which leaves her with ongoing physical, mental, cognitive, and emotional challenges. Around 40% of people who have had sepsis live with PSS, often lasting for months or years.

‘It is also really important to remember that sepsis does not discriminate – even if you are not at a higher risk of sepsis like I am, anybody can get sepsis, so it is essential to know the signs and symptoms. It can literally save a life,’ says Amani.

My biggest advice to anyone wondering if they have sepsis is that you know your body better than anybody, so listen to how you feel, and trust your instincts, because it literally can save your life.’