Mekala Osborne returns home for Christmas 15 months after leaving Wallyford for dream Vietnam trip
An inspirational personal trainer who was given just a five per cent chance to live after falling ill with a strain of pneumonia on a dream trip to Vietnam has finally returned to her Wallyford home, 15 months after setting off and after a year in hospital.
Mekala Osborne, 23, fell ill with bronchial pneumonia in the Southeast Asian country last September which she originally thought was just a sore throat and treated it with Strepsils.
Her health took a turn for the worst and her family were told to prepare for her death.
Mekala spent more than 100 days in an induced coma and was moved to a specialist hospital in Singapore - before being transported to the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in November 2019.
Mekala was then moved to Astley Ainslie Hospital in Edinburgh where she underwent eight months of gruelling recovery - and described her ordeal as 'a blessing', saying she 'loved every moment' of rehab.
But she was delighted to be reunited with her family in time for Christmas on Monday and was welcomed home by around 150 friends and neighbours.
Emotional Mekala became tearful when she saw her family home decorated with hundreds of yellow bows, contributed by well-wishers.
Mekala, who is using crutches to help her walk, told STV news: "I've loved every second of being in rehab.
"ICU was harder because I wasn't that well but rehab was amazing.
"To see myself go from strength to strength and learn everything that I did learn.
"I learned so much about myself as well that I never would have known if this didn't happen. It's been a blessing."
She only began breathing unaided in March and took her first steps in July.
Describing the effort put into her welcome home party, she said: "It was definitely a moment I'll remember.
"I'll remember everybody's face that I saw when I was looking round. It was amazing, an incredible feeling.
"To be walking back through the doors and have my family just here and all my friends, everybody who supported me, it's unreal."
Sharing four distinct photos from her road to recovery yesterday, Mekala wrote on her Twitter: “447 days, 4 hospitals and a million tears later, I’m home!!!”