Featured Image Credit: Matthew Horwood/Getty Images/Instagram/@amy_dowden
Topics: Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity, Health, UK News
Callum Jones
Topics: Strictly Come Dancing, Celebrity, Health, UK News
Strictly Come Dancing star Amy Dowden has opened up on a terrifying sepsis battle following her devastating cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
The professional dancer announced in May that she'd been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 32, leading to a massive outpouring of love, affection and support from fellow dancers and fans.
Further bad news was to come for Amy after doctors told her she'd been diagnosed with another type of cancer that would require chemotherapy.
It was when treatment began for that second cancer that disaster struck for Amy, as she began to feel unwell just two days after her first round on 3 August.
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She told Hello! magazine: "I wasn't feeling too bad that day, just sick, but a couple of hours later I started having a temperature of 37.7 degrees Celsius.
"At the time, I didn’t realise that having a temperature of 37.5 or above could be fatal for a chemo patient. I just thought it was my reaction to chemo, but as it turned out, I had already got an infection."
Amy's symptoms got 'worse very, very quickly' as she became breathless and complained of chest pain, according to her mum Gillian.
"At one point she felt ok, then suddenly she felt very ill – it happened in an instant," Gillian told Hello! magazine.
"She went to stand, then just sort of crumpled back onto the settee."
Amy added: "I felt freezing cold but I was all clammy and shaking. My mum and dad rang my red card [which provides the chemotherapy team’s contact details and current treatment information] and they said to hang up and ring the ambulance."
The Strictly dancer was rushed to Walsall Manor Hospital where doctors treated her for a viral infection.
Amy's family were then left in 'panic mode' after they were told the infection had developed into sepsis.
Amy was taken into the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) as her blood pressure had dropped dangerously low.
"The doctors and nurses were telling me I had sepsis and that it was life-threatening, but I wasn’t taking it in," Amy said.
"I didn’t become properly aware until later. I told my dad: 'I’ve got sepsis' and he said: 'I know!'."
In the Hello! interview Amy was reunited with the doctors who saved her life, including paramedic Adam Aston and student paramedic Tom Scott who were the first responders to Amy's house.