A FUNDRAISING appeal has been launched to help a young Thurrock woman who was forced to have her leg amputated after taking a dip in a hot tub.

Lauren Briggs, 25, who is well known in the Stanford-le-Hope community where she is a receptionist and administrator at Hassengate Medical Centre contracted meningitis after a dip in a hot tub at a party earlier this year.

Lauren, who lives in Corringham, woke up at her friend's house the following day struggling to breathe and was airlifted to a London hospital where she spent four months battling meningococcal septicaemia.

Doctors were unable to combat the initial infection and were forced to make a below knee amputation of her right leg and remove all of the toes on her left foot.

She takes up the story: "She said: "The night before, I had been in my friend's hot tub and doctors told me I may have contracted the infection through a small cut on my foot while in the hot tub.

"Hot tubs are filled with bacteria so it's likely that could have been the cause.

"I went to sleep that night feeling a bit nauseous but my friend found me in the early hours of the next morning gasping for breath on the floor.

"I was airlifted to hospital and spent four months there in total; the first 48 hours of which were critical. I was put into an induced coma and on life support due to multiple organ failure, unable to breathe independently initially.

"They performed an emergency tracheotomy to allow breathing apparatus to be connected. I was completely reliant on this for approximately two months. This was then slowly reduced over a course of weeks; I went from being on 24 hour oxygen to multiple different types of breathing valves until I was breathing independently again.

"Following this, I was then able to regain the use of my voice which is when they discovered my illness had an impact on this also. They carried out an MRI of my head as an investigation into why my speech had become impaired. It was then discovered that I had a small blood clot in one of the hemispheres of my brain, although this was an old clot they could not completely rule out that this may have had an impact on my speech.

"Although I have undergone some speech therapy whilst I was an inpatient at the hospital and I can make myself now understood by most people, it has been significantly impaired. I also have some lasting effects to my short term memory and my fine motor skills, predominantly my writing which has become significantly impaired since my illness.

"This has, alongside my physical health, has had a very detrimental impact on my mental health.

"As well as my new found disability and inability to live a completely independent life as before, I am also unable to work at present. Although there was some input from speech and language therapists while I was in hospital and my speech has significantly improved since earlier on in my journey, I am still significantly speech impaired and my ability to effectively retain short term information has declined significantly also.

"I am currently bound to a wheelchair. Although I have now been discharged from hospital, I have had to move out of my childhood home and into temporary hostel accommodation, which is a mother and baby unit which has the necessary adaptations in order for me to live as normal life as possible.

"Although these adaptations make it easier for me to live my day-to-day life, they are still not ideal at this present time. It is unclear how much my current condition will improve so, although some of my needs are met in the meantime, my current living conditions may not be suitable for all aspects of my journey which is why I am asking for some help to get my own property, adapted to meet my needs and enable me to live my life as normal as possible.

"I just want to live a life as normal as possible; I haven't even got a prosthetic leg yet.

"Having spent all year in hospital and not being able to return to my home or place of work since my new found disability, I am finding it hard to adapt to life outside of hospital and in this new, not ideal environment so, with the help of my friends who have set up a fundraising page, I am asking for the help of the general public.

"Thank you for taking the time to read my story and in advance for any donations you may decide to make in order to help me get my life back following my illness. "I'm currently staying in a mother and baby hostel because they couldn't find anywhere else for me to stay.

If you would like to help Lauren her fundraising page can be accessed via this link.