Navan woman who narrowly escaped death says she feels "lucky to be alive"

A Navan woman who narrowly escaped death after doctors failed to spot a potentially deadly infection that caused her body to shutdown says “she feels lucky to be alive today.”

Sara Hayton (54) from Clogherboy thought she was just run down when she developed stomach pains and presented herself to an A&E department last October but was told she was sent home hours later with over the counter painkillers.

Two weeks later after becoming unresponsive she was rushed to Navan Hospital then on to The Mater Hospital in Dublin where tests confirmed that she had sepsis, a violent immune response to an infection that can prove fatal, in which the body attacks its own organs.

The life threatening condition known as the silent killer had been triggered by a Staghorn Calculus, a large kidney stone shaped like a staghorn that had stopped one of her kidneys from functioning correctly and was not spotted initially by doctors.

The psychology graduate who is originally from Epsom near London spent seven weeks in The Mater Hospital and underwent keyhole sugery to remove the kidney stone with doctors later telling her she would have had two days to live had she not acted in time.

Speaking on the terrifying ordeal she said:

“I had been to hospital with stomach pains about two weeks before and I was told that I had a little kidney stone and they would send an out patients’ appointment for six months’ time.

“Exactly six days after that date my partner had to call an ambulance because I was so unwell. I was misdiagnosed.

“I actually had a huge kidney stone that had caused sepsis and it hadn’t been spotted.

“I hadn’t been diagnosed correctly and they sent me home with buscopan a painkiller that can buy that over the counter and I trusted what they said.

“Doctors told me had I not acted as quickly, I would have been dead two days later.

“I had no idea that I was so ill, I just I was just a bit run down.”

It was Sara’s sister who twigged that she was unwell through a phone conversation one day as she explains:

“I was on the phone to my sister for hours one day and apparently I kept falling asleep and waking up and telling her I was cold. She kept shouting at me to wake up and she got my partner to call the ambulance.

“Tests showed that I had a Staghorn Calculous, a kidney stone shaped like a staghorn that stops that kidney working and urine gets poisoned in the blood stream.

“I spent seven weeks in the Mater Hospital and had to have keyhole surgery to remove it.

“I was on so much medication that I don’t even remember the first ten days it was only afterwards that the shock of everything set in and I realised I lucky I was to be alive.

“Everything went well with surgery thank god and every six months I have to have a scan to make sure it doesn’t come back.”

Now the Navan woman who ran the canteen in Beaufort College for ten years and never picked up a knitting needle until the first lockdown earlier this year has found a new zest for life and passion for crafting making quirky bespoke hand knitted dolls’ dresses.

“I only learned to knit at the start of the first lockdown when I was cocooning, I had never knitted before.

“I wanted to try something new.

“I started with baby clothes and then I came across various different Barbie patterns and thought they were so pretty.

“I love the idea of creating something from scratch for a more traditional type of children’s toy.

“I sell them complete with a Barbie style doll, it is not a Barbie doll but it is the same dimensions as one so the clothes will fit a Barbie doll.

“I buy my wool and materials in the Singer Sewing Shop in Navan, the ladies in there are always really helpful.

“They are genuinely lovingly hand made. Each pattern is different, they are all original, they’ve put different stitches into each pattern so no two are the same.”

Sara says being faced with death has given her a new perspective on life.

“It made me look at things differently and given me a different outlook.

“You appreciate things that you would never have paid any heed to.

“I didn’t think I had a creative bone in my body and here I am now selling my doll’s dresses.

“I’m just grateful to be alive.”

For information see Sara Hayton on Facebook