A woman who stood on a drawing pin had to have her right leg amputated after contracting a life threatening infection.
And then as Kirsty Stockton was learning to cope with the disability she was diagnosed with a brain tumour.
She stood on the pin on the August bank holiday weekend in 2018, and was rushed into hospital five days later after she developed sepsis.
In the process of fighting the life-threatening infection, doctors were forced to amputate the 37-year-old's right leg, below the knee, reported the Liverpool Echo.
The mental health volunteer remained in hospital until October that year, but when she came home she found herself struggling to adapt to her "new world".
She said: “I had really low self-esteem and confidence. People were staring at me because I was now in this big world and was disabled - which for a long time I didn’t accept.
“It was like grief, and the grief was the hardest part. It was super hard to adapt to this new world. There’s still so much stigma and discrimination in society for disabled people to deal with. Even now, four years later, I still struggle with it. I do have strategies now to help deal with it but the stigma is huge.”
Kirsty, from St Helens, began to experience phantom pain in her missing limb and struggled to sleep.
After trying several different coping techniques, she came across mental health charity Evolving Mindset’s six-week programme - which focused on mindfulness, goal-setting and resilience.
Kirsty claims the programme enabled her to sleep better at night and, in doing so, saw her have a healthier diet and lose 23kg.
But there was a further blow for Kirsty, when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2021.
Kirsty said: “It was like one thing after another with the brain tumour. I was having seizures during the lockdown and when I was down south it was a hospital there that picked up on it. It was easier to deal with the tumour because I already had the tools.
“The whole experience was like a bereavement of that old lifestyle that I used to have - now my lifestyle is completely different. Granted, I’m more grateful when I wake up. It took something so drastic to make me realise how precious life is. Tomorrow is never promised for anyone.”
Through Evolving Mindset, Kirsty realised she wasn’t alone in struggling with her mental health. Since getting to a better place, Kirsty has worked to give back to others who are in a similar situation to what she once was.
Most recently, she participated in Evolving Mindset’s Night to Walk with 45 others. The group set off at 4am and walked for 10 miles as the sun was rising to “represent there is always light at the end of the darkness”.
Halewood’s Andrew Noon, who founded Evolving Mindset with his brother Phil, said: “I think it's really important events like this - us coming together at four o'clock in the morning, everyone with a similar mindset - in order to show no matter what they're going through in life, there's support out there.
“There are people that do care, because there are a lot of people, too many people in our own area are losing hope. So this event and others like it are massive to showing people there is support out there."
The group are fundraising to ensure they can continue to deliver their mental health services and donations can be made here.
