TV star Amanda Holden’s daughter Lexi was admitted to hospital with life-threatening E.coli — one of the first to be struck down in the latest outbreak.
Lexi, 18 — sitting her A-levels at the time — was on a ward for five days with Amanda and husband Chris at her bedside.
Here, Amanda warns others about the ongoing outbreak…
For about three weeks, Lexi had been complaining of bloating and stomach cramps.
She was not happy at all and in quite a lot of pain with her tummy.
It was around the time of revision and her A-levels, so I was just putting this down to exam stress.
Eventually I took her to the GP — who was beyond brilliant — and they insisted on taking blood samples and stool samples too.
Within a few days, the results came back as a bacterial infection.
From here the cultures were sent off to where they would be grown to determine what bacteria it was and what antibiotics to put her on.
Meanwhile, I was in Spain filming and began getting calls from various government officials because we had to fill out various forms about what and where she might have eaten, what kind of food we had in the house, etc.
But we were still clueless as to what this thing could actually be or where it had come from.
The cultures came back saying it was VTEC E.Coli, a very harmful strain of bacteria that’s very rare in humans.
At this point, there’d been nothing on the news about this and so we could not work out how it had happened.
Our doctor was asking if we lived on a farm or had any livestock because this sort of infection is affiliated with farmers.
I was even having our rabbits and cat checked, panicking she’d perhaps caught something from them.
The doctor advised that Lexi cut meat and dairy from her diet — but she’s vegetarian and doesn’t eat dairy.
She couldn’t be a healthier 18-year-old.
No-one could work out where it had come from and, by this time, she was on her third set of tests.
Suddenly it started to get worse and the antibiotics they’d put her on did not seem to be working.
I was driving back home one day and I had Hollie, my youngest, in the car with me when the doctor called and said: “I don’t want to alarm you Amanda, but Lexi’s bloods and everything else are through the roof. You need to check that her temperature doesn’t rise because she’s in danger of contracting sepsis.”
Poor Hollie could hear the conversation and burst into tears, whilst I was trying to stay calm.
Obviously, when you hear the word “sepsis”, it’s terrifying.
Lexi was feverish in bed with chronic bowel pain.
I’m sitting there just thinking: “Oh my god, what a week this is turning out to be.”
Lexi, a straight-A student, is literally in the middle of her exams.
So that night I slept with her and took her temperature every hour, on the hour.
In the morning, I spoke to my friend Pippa, one of the wonderful midwives who delivered our gorgeous stillborn boy Theo — she was the one who got me through all of that trauma and grief — and she advised us to rush Lexi to hospital.
We went straight to Northwick Park Hospital — which specialises in tropical illness and bacterial infection — and we had the most incredible team there who put her on an antibiotic drip.
I was in hospital all day with her and then my wonderful husband Chris would take over.
I was getting about two hours’ sleep a night, but all I cared about was Lexi getting better.
I was filming Britain’s Got Talent live shows during this time and, had the situation worsened, I’d have had no hesitation in pulling out of the show.
Simon, Alesha and Bruno were all brilliant, so supportive.
Lexi, meanwhile, was panicking and very distressed about her exams.
She had a temperature of 39 point something and was deliriously hot.
It was awful seeing her in so much pain.
Eventually, we were told Lexi was the 113th case in the country — but the doctor warned us this was tip- of-the-iceberg stuff, and more cases were to come.
Gradually it started dripping into the news.
We kept it quiet at the time because we didn’t want to cause mass panic and we didn’t know for quite some time what we were dealing with.
Plus, we didn’t want to draw attention to Lexi.
She has now suggested we share her story to help raise awareness.
The brilliant hospital got her through the worst of it.
She was finally let out after five days, but she’s been back and forth since for more blood tests because her inflammation markers are raised.
She might now need an endoscopy and, worryingly, it could be she now has a sort of ongoing problem with her tummy.
The VTEC was such a horrible and destructive bacteria that it could have actually started something else going on with her bowels, like colitis.
We will have to wait and see, but right now, she is doing so much better and living life like a normal 18-year-old.
We are praying there’s no long-term damage, and just seeing how she gets on.
She’s eating properly now, out drinking with friends and having a fun time, as she should.
The reason I am speaking out is because I want to make people aware of the symptoms they could easily put down to stress or anxiety.
They should be taken seriously, especially if long term.
A family friend of ours contacted me to say a family friend of theirs — a healthy 25-year-old man — was in intensive care because he had ulcers on his liver and that was also linked to the bacteria.
But this stuff isn’t being reported.
I’m sure there are other cases and I just found it quite surprising no one was taking it as seriously as it should be taken.
We think Lexi caught it from a bag of pre-washed supermarket lettuce, which is scary as obviously you think ‘pre-washed’ means it’s fine.
So I urge everyone to forensically wash their fruit and veg.
Lexi went from being a perfectly happy girl looking forward to the summer holidays and university, to a very poorly one who feared losing everything she had worked so hard for in a matter of days.
So my advice would be, if you are suffering from any of the symptoms, you ask for a stool sample because it doesn’t always come up in the blood samples.
The NHS is so great.
I owe them my life for all they’ve done for me over the years, and I’m just super-grateful to Northwick Park Hospital.
On the day Lexi came out of hospital, I got BGT final tickets for all the nurses and the main team to say thank you.
By Dr Marios Anastasiadis
IN rare cases, people with severe E.coli can become seriously ill and are at risk of developing sepsis, which can be fatal.
For the majority of those infected, symptoms will be of mild food poisoning with watery diarrhoea, abdominal pain and fatigue.
In severe cases, patients can get bloody diarrhoea or diarrhoea continuing for more than two or three days, with severe vomiting and a temperature higher than 38 degrees.
In young children or the elderly, it can potentially cause uremic syndrome, which can damage the kidneys and lead to acute kidney failure.
In most cases people will recover without the need for medication.
For severe symptoms, antibiotics may be needed, or hospital treatment.
Cases of developing sepsis — where the body’s organs can shut down — are relatively rare.
