Mum struggled to get out of bed then doctors said she had eight hours to live

Mum struggled to get out of bed then doctors said she had eight hours to live The 52-year-old's family was told to get to hospital to say their goodbyes A 52-year-old woman who was struggling to get out of bed one weekend ended up being taken to the hospital, where doctors said she had eight hours to live. Tracey Easton had been suffering from blood clots in her lungs, Crohn’s disease and osteoarthritis, which meant she was often bedbound. So when the retail worker from Sheerness, Kent was unable to get out of bed over the weekend of May 2 and 3, her family didn’t realise her life was in danger. But the mum of five’s condition declined and she was taken to Medway Maritime Hospital, Gillingham, on the morning of May 4. Tracey’s son Dawson McFarland said within a couple of hours, doctors told the family she had just a matter of hours to live. “It’s all sort of a blur for me that day,” said Dawson, 20. “She’d gone in the morning, and we’d got a phone call a couple of hours after saying she’s not making it through the day. “The doctors said if you want to come down to the hospital to see I would suggest doing so, as she has eight hours to live. The sepsis had blown a hole through a part of her body. It got that bad that there was only a 1% chance of her surviving the surgery. There was no point in the doctors doing it. “I don’t even know what was going through my head myself. I wasn’t ready for it. It all just hit me out of nowhere. I’d made peace with the fact that she’s probably not going to live for another 10 years because she was ill. But I wasn’t expecting her to go so soon.” Sepsis is a serious reaction to an infection that develops very quickly over a few hours and is life-threatening if not treated at hospital urgently. Common symptoms in adults include confusion or slurred speech, uncontrollable shivering, muscle pain, difficulty breathing, temperature changes, and not urinating for over 18 hours. Tracey left behind husband Darren McFarland, daughters Kimberly McFarland, 14, and Nasmin Easton, 36, and sons Dillan Easton, 25, and Danual Easton, 31, as well as Dawson who said she was the “perfect mum”. “She’d always put her family first,” he said. “She made sure we all had anything we wanted, so she was a selfless person. My mum put us before herself, which was to her detriment at times. She would never scold me and would never try to punish me. Instead, she’d always try to teach me what not to do rather than punish me for doing it. I couldn’t ask for a better mum.” Dawson, an amateur footballer, is now fundraising in memory of Tracey with help from his Bourne Knights FC teammates. The Sheppey Sunday League team will host a charity BBQ, football match and family fun day in her honour on October 10, with all proceeds going to the UK Sepsis Trust. The charity raises awareness about sepsis, which leads to 48,000 people’s deaths in the UK each year. Dawson said: “If my mum knew before she died that I’d be hosting a charity football event in her name, she’d be more than honoured. She was the whole reason I’m so into football as it is now. She started following Liverpool because she liked their kits in the ‘90s and passed that on to me. “She would be over the moon that I am hosting a charity event for her. My teammates and the club have been good as gold. I couldn’t ask for a better friend group during these last months. Humbled isn’t the right word.”