‘I went on dream holiday and had both my legs amputated, but I’ve found peace in hospital garden’ – the Kennington garden that helps amputees gain their independence back

Imagine going on your dream holiday and returning home needing to have both of your legs amputated.

That was the reality for Suziye Hunwicks, who fell ill with sepsis on her way to Cuba for a dancing holiday with her best friends in January.

Not long after returning to England, doctors gave her the devastating news that the infection had spread to her feet and that she would need to have both of her legs amputated.

Suziye is just one of hundreds of amputee patients who have been helped by a bucolic garden paradise hidden away off a side street in Kennington.

The half-acre garden is in part of Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital's amputee rehabilitation centre, where patients are helped to heal, mentally and physically, from the trauma of losing their limbs.

“I thought my life was over”

The holiday to Cuba was one Suziye had been dreaming about all her life.

"Cuba was my bucket list destination. I have always danced, I danced salsa for 25 years," she said.

Suziye and two of her best friends booked flights to Havana for a dancing holiday in January, timing the trip to coincide with her birthday.

Suziye Hunwicks

But what should have been the trip of a lifetime soon spiralled into a nightmare.

"I started feeling poorly as we boarded the plane," she explained. "Then I got really ill. I was laying on the floor at the back of the plane.

“The pilot said we needed to land early because it was very serious. They redirected the plane to Charleston, South Carolina.”

Suziye Hunwicks

Once she got to the hospital, Suziye lay in a coma for two and a half weeks while her family rushed over from the UK to be by her side.

In a grimly ironic twist, Suziye woke up from her coma the day after her birthday, feeling disorientated with no memory of what had happened.

Suziye dancing before undergoing the amputation. Credit - Suziye Hunwicks

She flew back to another hospital in England where she was treated at Queen's Hospital in Essex. But months later in May she contracted another infection. The doctors told her that this time, the disease had spread to her feet and that her left leg needed to be amputated.

“They did my left leg first and did the other two weeks after because they were still trying to save it. But I said no – just do it – because I was in so much pain that once they did it, I knew I wouldn’t be in pain anymore."

Her instant thought after waking up from the amputation surgery was: "That's it. I’m not going to walk, I’m not going to dance ever again. I felt numb."

But a month into her stay at the amputee rehabilitation centre, Suziye is not only walking again on her prosthetic legs, but she's looking forward to dancing again.

"I put it all down to these amazing people here," she said. "They give you the confidence that you will be able to live independently again.

"I can go home and do everything I did before, I just have to take it slower. I want to drive, I want to do my dancing and play with my grandchildren. I’m absolutely looking forward to doing all that.”

"I can't believe how lucky I am to be here."

The garden has fig trees, vegetable patches and is home to a family of foxes. It was set up in 1985 to help heal patients' spirits, offering a break from the intensive work of physical rehab that goes on indoors, where patients learn to walk on their new prosthetic limbs or get used to living in a wheelchair.

Scott Bowie, 60, said: "I can't believe how lucky I am to be here."

Scott, who is diabetic, needed to have his leg amputated in July after he contracted an infection in his right foot at the end of last year.

Scott Bowie, 60

"In the six months after Christmas until June, the doctors said the infection wasn’t going well. I came to St Thomas’ and they told me they would have to amputate.

“It was devastating. I thought that was it, really. I’m 60 years old - I thought that without one foot I’d be done.

"I thought that my life as I knew it was over and that I would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of my life. And that was devastating. I had depression, anxiety, and I was just feeling useless."

But after six weeks at the centre, Scott is not only walking on his new prosthetic leg, but his mental health has completely turned around.

"They’re now getting me to do putting so I can go back and play golf - which is just remarkable because I thought that was it."

He adds he feels "completely ready" to go back to his home in Kent.

"I feel I'm independent. I don't feel like I'll be a burden to my family any more," he said.

"It just shows you when one door shuts and you think it is bolted shut, another one can open if you open your mind to it. "

Nic Olsen, who is in his sixties, used to walk "a minimum of three hours a day" in the countryside near where he lives in Leicestershire before he lost both of his legs in May.

“Unfortunately, I wasn’t diagnosed soon enough that the arteries in my legs were blocked. Despite the best attempts of my doctors to unblock them, it was too late," he explained.

"We had to give up and I was advised that sooner or later things would go wrong with my legs and the sooner I had them amputated and prosthetic legs fitted the better the rest of my life would be."

The garden, while not quite the same as roaming through the open countryside, means Nic can enjoy watching the seasons change.

Nic Olsen

"If you live in the countryside you get used to following the seasons. A lot of the things here are perennial," he told us.

"If it's raining then you can look out of the window or you can come out here in your wheelchair and you can touch things, you can smell things. There is a vibrancy here - nature has its own rhythm.

"We've got tropical birds that have escaped, we have a family of foxes – who are a bit cheeky!"

Nic often busies himself tending to the herbs and vegetables growing in the garden, while other times he prefers to just sit alone with his thoughts.

“You put all the negatives about losing your legs and phantom pain to one side. You can come out here and they’re all in the past.

"To have the sight of this out of the window or to be pushed around – I think it is one of the finest examples of what this country's health service can do."

Most patients stay at the centre for between four and six weeks, and usually arrive three weeks after their amputation surgery.

The garden has both a physical rehab role – it helps with developing balance and leaning – and an important psychological one.

"Patients will come to us once they are medically stable and their limbs are healing," said Jodie Spyrou, who runs the clinic. "Most patients have lost lower limbs, because of illnesses like diabetes or vascular disease.

"Psychologically it helps patients get through the grieving stage of what has happened to them and move towards the next stage of gaining independence and moving home.

"From a mental health point of view, lots of people leave here feeling much more settled with what’s happened to them and coming to terms with it."

For Jodie, the most rewarding part of the job is "seeing patients walk on their prosthetic limbs for the first time. The joy, both for them and for us, never goes away."

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