At the end of last year, Lucy Bindon was top of her class and had the world at her feet as she prepared to head to university to follow her dreams to become a doctor.
But in February 2017, she was struck down by a deadly disease just one week after starting her studies in medicine at the University of Sydney.
And if it wasn’t for the fact that her cousin’s flatmate was a doctor, she might not have survived beyond her 18th birthday.
Lucy Bindon (pictured in hospital) was struck down with a killer disease one week into university
If it wasn’t for the fact that her cousin’s flatmate was a doctor, Miss Bindon might not have survived beyond her 18th birthday.
After starting to feel ill on the first weekend into her six-year degree, Miss Bindon drove to her cousin’s house for medical advice.
‘When I started to go downhill further, she took me into St Vincent’s but they just thought it was gastritis and said I was fine to go home,’ Miss Bindon told Yahoo7 News.
But just to be on the safe side, she decided to spent the night in hospital – where she woke up in agony at 3am with a raging fever.
‘I don’t remember much after that,’ the teen admitted.
The doctors gave her medication to manage the pain of what they thought were stomach cramps, but was actually meningococcal septicaemia attacking her immune system.
At 8am, a spreading rash alerted doctors to her real illness, and they were forced to put her in a medically-induced coma for a week.
After starting to feel ill on the first weekend into her six-year degree, Miss Bindon drove to her cousin’s house for medical advice
The doctors gave her medication to manage the pain of what they thought were stomach cramps, but was actually meningococcal septicaemia attacking her immune system
But when she woke up, she was weak, disoriented, couldn’t work and had no desire to ever set foot in an ICU again after having to spend another month recovering.
‘Because I had been in a coma, I had lost about 80 per cent of my muscle,’ she explained. ‘I had to learn how to walk again…I never wanted to go back to a hospital again, I didn’t want to go back to studying medicine.’
She was told that it would take a year for her to regain her full strength – but she was determined to do it faster, and returned to university to study electives.
Back to full strength and studying harder than ever, Miss Bindon flew to New Zealand recently to bungee jump 134m – and prove that she was well and truly fighting fit
But as she gradually returned to her lifestyle, her desire to be a doctor came back.
‘I realised it has given me a lot of life experience, it’s given me an insight into what it’s like to be on the other end [as a patient],’ she said.
Back to full strength and studying harder than ever, Miss Bindon flew to New Zealand recently to bungee jump 134m – and prove that she was well and truly fighting fit.