When Tess is allowed to return home, she is confident about her recovery. Tess: “I thought it would take a month.” She is disappointed. For three years, Tess barely leaves the house. Tess: “Sometimes I would lie in bed and have to go to the toilet. But I didn’t, because I could barely walk upright and then I would get nauseous again.
Despondent
She tries everything to get better: physiotherapy, occupational therapy, a psychologist, a neurologist, a breathing coach, alternative therapy. Tess: “Every now and then things got a little better, but then there was always a setback. Sometimes I think: I would rather have lost a leg than this. At least then I could participate in the Paralympic Games.”
In the spring of 2025, Tess has almost lost hope of a full recovery. It can be seen in the documentary Tess Survives Sepsis by Jaimy van der Meer, Rob Prass, Suzan Verkaart and Angélica Baltus, which can be seen on Saturday on the NH TV channel and website.
“Will things ever get better?” Tess asks in the opening scene of the documentary. She rubs the tears from her eyes.
Fitness exercises in a trance
Fortunately, she then finds her way up, in front of the camera. She can follow a special kind of therapy in Australia. Finally one that works for her.
“It’s difficult to explain,” she says, “You do all kinds of light fitness exercises. You have to make sure you concentrate very much on your body, almost as if you are in a trance.”
Never thought: happy with the NS
Tess looks apologetic again. “It sounds vague, but through those exercises I ‘reset’ my body, so to speak.” And it works: Tess can do things more and more often through these exercises without immediately feeling nauseous.
She recently took the train to Amsterdam again, to visit a friend. With a laugh: “I never would have thought it before, but then I noticed that I had missed the NS.”
It will take at least another two years before she is back to her old self, Tess thinks. But then she already knows what she wants to do: “Then I want to provide the therapy that I have now followed. So that I can help others with sepsis, and they do not have to go all the way to Australia.”