Reality star was hospitalised and 'nearly died' after liver and kidney failure caused life-threatening sepsis
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The 28-year-old Made In Chelsea star, who joined the cast of the hit reality show last year, has said he is lucky to be alive after he was rushed to hospital with what he thought was the flu back in December.
Sam, whose auntie is reality Tv legend Lisa Vanderpump, who runs his own brokerage firm called Vanderpump FX, told MailOnline that he was ‘terrified’ to discover the truth behind his symptoms. Sam explained that he had spent days in bed suffering from dehydration and severe back pain and had became 'delirious' so his girlfriend Alice Yaxley, aged 23, called an ambulance.
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Hide AdThe star was then quickly taken to hospital, where doctors told him if he was admitted to hospital 24 hours later it would have been too late. They had discovered that his liver and kidneys had stopped working and he needed urgent medical attention. Then, as Sam's body fought off the infection, he contracted sepsis - a conditon which occurs when an infection triggers an extreme reaction in the body's immune system.
Sam said: “I thought I was going to die. I didn't think my body could cope and that was the scariest thing. It was terrifying. I remember the doctor saying to me that I was going into liver and kidney failure. I burst into tears. My mum didn't react badly, you would expect her to be in complete meltdown, but she didn't want to scare me.
“The words they used for the function of my liver were 'deranged' and 'demonic.' You don't feel your organs normally but when they stop working and because my liver and kidneys weren't working my heart was in overdrive, my pancreas was struggling, my spleen wasn't well. . . and you can feel all this pain and uncomfortableness, I was really, really fighting to keep myself alive. I didn't think I was going to survive or see the outside of the hospital again.”


He went on: “You never think the flu will lead to you being in a hospital bed and nearly dying. They told my mum that if I had got to hospital 24-48 hours later, I wouldn't have made it. By calling the ambulance, my girlfriend literally saved my life.”
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Hide AdSam, who was treated in Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, said that doctors were shocked by his initial test results, which highlighted the severity of his condition. “There is a liver function test, when your liver is performing normally there is a protein called CRP (C-reactive protein), which releases protein into your blood to fight against infection.
“When there's no infection in your body you produce 0-5 milligrams because you don't need it so when you have a mild infection, it will be around the 50 milligram mark and when it's a bad infection and you need to seek urgent medical care it's about 100 milligrams. . . but mine was up in the 400s. My white cells, which are meant to be between 8-12 were double that. My liver enzymes, which are meant to be at 40, were at 140. They told me I was the sickest patient on the ward.”
He went on: “For the first 48 hours they struggled to get the infection under control. For the next seven days I was on two different types of antibiotics and one anti-fungal.” He added: “Luckily, they (the doctors) worked overtime, monitoring me every single hour.”
As a result of his condition, Sam developed jaundice which caused his skin and whites of his eyes to turn yellow. He also had a catheter fitted because he was unable to pass liquids - and this led to severe water retention. Sam added that he was horrified after seeing his stomach swell to the size of a pregnant woman.
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Hide AdSam said: 'When your liver stops working, you get jaundice, so my eyes were yellow. My kidneys stopped working so no liquids were leaving my body, which was the most painful experience of my life. I had a catheter put up my willy, but I was gaining so much water weight. I normally have a six pack, but my stomach had swollen so much it looked like I was pregnant. It was so painful, so uncomfortable.”
He went on to discuss how his illness had caused dramatic weight fluctuation: “I usually weigh 87kg but when I came out of hospital, I weighed 72kg, so I lost 15kg in eight days. But when I was still in hospital, I was still weighing 80 kilos because I had 8 kilos of water weight in my belly and legs, my legs started to swell up as well. At one point they wanted to stick a needle in me to drain the water but luckily my kidneys started working.’
Sam ]went on to say that his near-death experience was caused by multiple factors. He was born with liver and kidney disease, but this has laid dormant for his whole life. He had biannual checkups at Great Ormond Street Hospital from the age of four to age 16, and is now looked after by King's College Hospital.
Falling ill with the flu, coupled with suffering from asthma, triggered a serious infection, however, that Sam's immune system struggled to cope with. He said: “I've had liver and kidney disease which has essentially been dormant for the past 28 years. I have checkups every six months and have been told I am healthy, and my liver function is good, and I should live my life normally.”
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Hide AdSam is the youngest son of Mark and Simone Vanderpump, with one older brother named Jack. Mark, who was Lisa Vanderpump's older brother and a businessman and DJ, died in 2018 aged 59. An inquest into his death ruled it as suicide, with drug toxicity determined as the cause of death.
In the upcoming series of Made in Chelsea, Sam now wants to raise awareness of liver and kidney disease and teach viewers how to spot the early signs of sepsis, which kills more people in the UK than lung cancer, breast cancer, and bowel cancer combined. Her said: “I'm going to talk about my experience on Made In Chelsea. I told the producers I will be talking about my health issues in this series and how I can help NHS charities. This has given me a new outlook on life. I am currently planning a charity event with Made In Chelsea, which will be featured on the show.”
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