Drumchapel man walking 500 miles to raise awareness of sepsis

Alastair Craig told the Post he is hoping to keep his late wife Brenda’s memory alive by raising funds for Glasgow charity Sepsis Research (FEAT).

Sepsis is a life-threatening reaction to an infection. It occurs when a person’s immune system overreacts to an infection and starts to damage the body’s own tissues and organs.

Alastair will be taking on the Kiltwalk at the end of April as part of his 500-mile jaunt and explained that “it’s not all about the money”.

The pair loved to travel all over Scotland (Image: Sepsis Research (FEAT))

The 66-year-old said: “I’m more doing the fundraising for the research side of things. I think there is a lack of awareness around sepsis.

“When I told some people that Brenda had passed away with sepsis they automatically thought it had been blood poisoning – Septicemia – or that it was a dirty hospital.

“I had to keep on saying ‘no it’s not, it’s nothing like that’, I can’t fault the care or the cleanliness or anything in the hospital.

“Your own body goes into overdrive to fight the infection and ends up destroying itself, it’s a horrible thing.

“To me, events like this aren’t always about the money, it’s more about raising awareness.

"When I did the virtual Kiltwalk in 2020 I had a special t-shirt made up and I’m going to wear that as well as my sepsis research top.

“If I can answer people’s questions along the way, I’d be quite happy with that.”

The couple met on an online dating site in 2007 and were married at the Park Circus Registry Office on September 9, 2011.

Brenda has two sons from a previous marriage both of whom live in Vancouver, Canada. Alastair has a son and a daughter.

The couple shared many interests including watching Rugby games (Image: Sepsis Research (FEAT))

Brenda was working at Scottish Canals when she first met Alastair, helping boats move along the Forth and Clyde Canal.

Now, Alastair, who uses walking as “a kind of therapy”, explained that this is why walks by the canal are so important to him.

Alistair and Brenda on their wedding day in 2011 (Image: Sepsis Research (FEAT))

The pair travelled a lot, enjoying holidays in Lanzarote, as well as ticking off each of the islands on the West Coast of Scotland.

They were married for just over eight years when Brenda fell ill in January 2020.

Alastair added: “She phoned me one day saying she’d had to come home from work because she had a real pain in her kidneys.

“She was seen by our GP almost straight away, she had a kidney stone and was given some painkillers.

“Over the next couple of weeks, she had intermittent really bad pain. I think we had three trips to the out-of-hours at Stobhill and then they decided to take her to Glasgow Royal Infirmary to try to blast the kidney stone out but they were unable to carry out that treatment.

“So they put a stent in hoping it would ease out that way and it seemed to work but I never did find out if it actually had worked.

“She went in to get the stent removed around 10am on Monday, February 17, and it was only supposed to be day surgery.

"I was meant to pick her up at 4pm but they phoned to say they were keeping her in overnight because her blood pressure was a wee bit high.

“I stupidly came home and didn’t think twice about it and switched my phone off and at 4am in the morning I had the police at the door saying that she’d been taken to the ICU and could I get over there as quick as possible and it just went downhill from there.

"When I arrived, Brenda was awake but a bit agitated, partly through lack of sleep, partly through painkillers.

"I was told she had been diagnosed with sepsis and her condition was causing the medical staff some alarm.

"They told me that her sons should maybe make the journey from Canada."

Brenda sadly passed away on Wednesday, February 19, 2020, just 48 hours after she went to have the stent removed.

Her sons arrived from Canada that evening.

Now, Alastair is determined to make sure as many people as possible are educated on the condition so they can spot the early signs of it.

The 66-year-old said: “It’s so indiscriminate because there are people who have it for weeks, they can be in intensive care for weeks and they can recover and then other people go into hospital and that’s it, it’s not pleasant.

“It’s just unfortunate that a lot of the symptoms are things that people would put down as having the flu or something like that.

“It’s being hot and cold at the same time, blotchiness on your feet and hands, high blood pressure, clamminess, and not passing enough urine but you would take that as a bad case of the flu.”

Any funds that Alastair raises will be donated to Sepsis Research (FEAT).

He hopes to complete his overall goal of 500 miles on September 9, what would have been the couple’s wedding anniversary.

Alastair said: “It’s my first time doing the official Kiltwalk after the first was cancelled due to Covid. So this is kind of a completion of what I set out to do in 2020.

“I’ll be doing lots of walks that were important to Brenda and me. It’s my way of keeping her memory alive.

“It started in September last year and I’ve still got the Caledonia Canal to do.

"In September I’m going to walk from the Falkirk Wheel to Bowling in stages and hopefully I’ll finish on September 9 which would have been our anniversary.”

Further information on sepsis and its symptoms can be found on the NHS's website HERE.