I’d had a bad cough for two weeks when I went to see the doctor. I was prescribed antibiotics, but the next day I still felt terrible, so I called NHS 24 (Scotland’s telephone health service). They encouraged me to go to hospital. The moment I arrived, I collapsed. I didn’t wake up again for three weeks.

It was 2013 and I was 43, with a young son and a small business. My cough had been a sign of pneumonia and I had developed lesions on my lungs. Streptococcus A is a bacterium that lives harmlessly within us all, but it had got into my lungs. My body had overreacted and I had contracted blood poisoning. My organs began shutting down. The hospital called my parents with the news that I was in a coma and wasn’t expected to survive the night.

A team of consultants worked tirelessly to save me. They put me on an ECMO machine, which takes blood from your body, oxygenates and chills it, then puts it back in. The aim is to give your organs a rest, but the process is a huge risk to your extremities and your brain.

The ECMO treatment saved my life but, by the time I was brought out of a medically induced coma three weeks later, my hands were withered like claws and the colour of charcoal. There was hope for my feet and legs because they had changed between blue and pink every few days; friends had been massaging them while I was in the coma.

After six weeks, I was moved to Glasgow Royal. The first morning, a consultant came in and announced to colleagues that I would be losing my hands and feet in three days. The consultant didn’t realise nobody had told me. I managed to hold it together until they all left the room, then I crumbled. I remember screaming.

The amputation process began a few days later, requiring seven trips to theatre and 25 blood transfusions. My legs were amputated at the calf, to allow for prosthetics. My surgeon thought I would be a strong candidate for a hand transplant, so he amputated with this in mind.

Three months later, I went home. My son, Rory, had turned five and started school. Suddenly, we were both having to learn to hold a pen. I had to relearn everything with my stumps: turning a key, using a hairbrush, how to drive. Every time I achieved a new task the thrill was euphoric.

I set up a charity called Finding Your Feet to support amputees back into their old lives. The success of the charity helped pull me through, along with the feeling that I had to be there for Rory.

I took some convincing to go on the transplant list; my immune system had already failed me so badly and I had begun to get used to my new way of life. But Prof Simon Kay and his team at Leeds General thought I would be a good candidate. Their excitement began to rub off on me. In September 2014, I was in line to receive the UK’s first double hand transplant.

But finding a donor of the same gender, skin colour and hand size was like finding a needle in a haystack. Months and years went by. In 2016, the first double hand transplant went to a Doncaster man. I grew despondent – then the call came in January 2019. I underwent a 12-hour surgery involving 12 surgeons.

I wasn’t told much about the woman whose hands became mine, only that she was of a similar age. I used my platform with the charity to thank her family. They got in touch anonymously to wish me good luck.

Before a transplant, you undergo psychological testing to ensure you will be able to cope. But I felt instantly that my new hands – soft, beautiful and delicate – belonged to me. I like to give them a french manicure and, although my old jewellery doesn’t fit, I can wear loose bracelets.

For the first few months, even a small knock could have ruined the tendons that flex my fingers. Now surgeons say they are bulletproof. The muscles in my palms are taking longer to come back but, when they do, I’ll be able to make small movements, like doing up zips and tying knots.

The future looks bright. Finding Your Feet is flourishing, and I was recently the recipient of a British Citizen award. I got to visit the House of Lords and do a tour of honour on an open top bus with Rory, who is now 11. I am so grateful to my donor, her family and my surgeons and doctors. And I can’t believe how resilient Rory has been. I wish more people would consider organ donation and respect their loved ones’ wishes if they have opted in: it changed my life for ever.

•As told to Grace Holliday

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• This article was amended on 2 August 2019 because group A streptococcal infections are bacterial and not viral as an earlier version said.