Alexis Lewis from Stockbridge, in Hampshire around 2013 already tied the knot with his sweetheart, Lucy Townsend, and raised their two-year-old son, Sam as well as running the Greyhound pub and the King’s Arms in nearby Lockerley.
He was living the best time of his life, but not until tragedy came knocking on their doors. He caught a cold one day and he never thought it was something serious, he called it the “man flu.”
Alex Lewis told Metro, “Because we owned and lived in a pub and came into contact with lots of different people, I assumed it was a seasonal cold and thought it started as man flu.”
He felt a day’s rest is all he needed to remedy the situation but it went on until he became feverish and was passing blood in his urine. His skin turned people and it was clear that it wasn’t the flu as they all thought.
He was rushed to a hospital in Winchester, England on November 17, 2013, where he was diagnosed with streptococcal infection (type A) and it has penetrated deep into his tissues and organs.
He has sepsis, shock syndrome, septicemia, and necrotizing fascitis and his body was fighting each other.
It was a hard moment for the family and his wife Lucy thought she was going to lose her husband to the cold hands of death.
She recalled while speaking with The Guardian, “I called an ambulance, and within eight minutes, they were there. At the hospital, we went straight into resuscitation, and I was told to say goodbye. His kidneys were shutting down, and they were going to put him on life support.”
He was said to have only three percent chances of survival as almost all parts of his body has turned black.
Alex told Metro, “They were going to turn my life support off, but they wanted to give me one more night to see if I improved, and they wanted to give my family a chance to say goodbye. I cannot imagine what Lucy and my mum were going through.”
He continued: “Having spoken to them since it happened, I think they were more in shock as they couldn’t believe something so incredibly invasive was happening so quickly.
I don’t remember being in excruciating pain at this point, but my family remembers seeing me in absolute agony.”
His body has been infected with a flesh-eating bug and he ended up losing all of his limbs and some parts of his face.
Since he lost a great part of his skin, he had to seek a surgeon to fix it and became the first person ever to have surgery to cover both his top and bottom lips at once, with one single piece of skin.
After staying in the hospital for months he was discharged and was ready to face the new life in front of him.
Lewis realized that he can do so much more with life than he has done in the past few years. He was going to spend more time with his family and also help people who are physically impaired like him.
Lewis is a fighter and he should be celebrated for coming out strong and living his best life amidst all he has been through.