A 35-year-old woman from London has revealed she is ‘grateful to be alive’ after she woke up to find she had no arms or legs following an illness that put her in a coma.
Tatiana Timon, from Camberwell in South London, became a quadruple amputee, after a dance holiday in southwestern Africa ended tragically.
The dancer and restaurant worker joined a group dance trip to Angola to improve her Key Zumba in the country where it originated.
Tatiana described how she had the most amazing ten days pursuing her passion in the country.
But unknown to the 35-year-old, while abroad she had been bitten by a mosquito and contracted the deadliest form of Malaria. MyLondon reports.
‘I was clueless,’ said Tatiana, who admitted she hadn’t followed her GP’s advice to take antimalarials.
Her mind was only focused on Covid at the time, she said.
It wasn’t until a few days after she flew back to London that things began to escalate incredibly quickly.
Tatiana described how after returning to London she fell off her bike on the way to work.
Though not badly injured, she decided to stay with a friend for a few days to recover, but within days she had become so weak and feverish that she couldn’t make it to the bathroom by herself.
Tatiana’s friend called an ambulance and she was rushed to hospital, where tests confirmed it was not the bike accident, but a deadly form of Malaria, causing her symptoms.
The illness rapidly worsened, and within hours Tatiana was put in an induced coma.
While she doesn’t remember any of what happened next, Tatiana said her friends and family watched on helplessly as the Malaria turned into sepsis – blood poisoning.
She said: ‘All of my friends and my family were worried because the doctor was telling them that I was going to die, like I was about to die three times.’
Tatiana said her work even paid for her father to fly to London from Réunion Island to ‘say goodbye’.
Tatiana, who says she only survived because of how fit her body was, explained that to prevent the sepsis spreading to her vital organs, doctors had to amputate all four of her limbs.
The memories are hazy, and Tatiana can only recall snapshots – like being wheeled into an operating theatre and seeing a ‘big saw’ before the operation to remove her lower legs.
She said: ‘When I woke up from the coma I knew, I saw that I was in hospital, and I knew something happened to me. But at that time I didn’t know how bad it was, like I just knew something had happened.’
‘It’s really hard to explain,’ said Tatiana, who said physical movement felt like a mental block, rather than a physical impossibility, at first.
She explained: ‘I knew my body was there but I just couldn’t move it. It was like, when you’re in your bed and you don’t want to move.’
In the weeks and months since, Tatiana has had to begin the slow process of accepting her new body – and adapting to it. She is determined to become 100 per cent independent.
Her friends, family, and entire community have been left awestruck by her unshakeable positivity through it all.
Tatiana’s friends have set up a GoFundMe to help her buy hi-tech prosthetics.
