\n<\/p>\n
Kearns said she was grateful to Dr Blackadder-Weinstein for urging her to go to the hospital.<\/p>\n
Sepsis, which can be life-threatening and is difficult to spot, is an emergency reaction to infection where the immune system overcompensates and damages tissues and organs.<\/p>\n
“We had to go through like, three, four days of hell in hospital, the two of us, up in Birmingham and, I don’t think we realized how much we went through until now,” Kearns said. <\/p>\n
“I’m so thankful for the doctors here at Villa, because if I was at home that day, and I probably would have rung my mum saying, ‘Oh, I feel a bit like flu-ish symptoms’, everyone would just say, ‘Have a sleep’ or whatnot, but Jodie made me go to the hospital.<\/p>\n
“I was not wanting to go, because there’s nothing worse than obviously going to a hospital, but they probably saved my life because I had sepsis, and while having that, I wasn’t even thinking about the sepsis. It was: I’ve lost my child – and Liam was probably thinking the same.”<\/p>\n
Kearns has visited Villa’s training ground to see her team-mates and work on rebuilding her fitness, but said she is still dealing with the mental trauma.<\/p>\n
“I wouldn’t say I’m fully coping,” Kearns said. <\/p>\n
“There’s days like today where I feel good, I’ve been in and around the [Aston Villa] girls and stuff, I’ve done my bike, I’ve done my testing, like, ready to get back on to it. <\/p>\n
“But yesterday, I was upset all day because I got some news about the things we have to sort and it just comes and goes in waves.”<\/p>\n
Kearns recognises that everyone deals with grief differently but stressed the importance of not “suffering in silence”.<\/p>\n
She highlighted Tommy’s – the UK’s largest pregnancy and baby loss charity – as an important resource to lean on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n