The damage caused by the black spider with distinctive white markings, confirms Catherine’s lifelong arachnophobia.

“I have been terrified of spiders all my life,” she said.

“People tell you it’s such a silly phobia, they can’t hurt you. But now I know, yes they can.”

Her core body temperature dropped as the skin infection cellulitis set in.

The results of a heart scan will tell whether it has spread up her arm. When the infection in her now immobile hand has faded, surgeons will remove tendons from elsewhere in her body to repair it.

It will take three to six months of physiotherapy before it is fully working.

“At the moment it feels like it’s never going to end,” Catherine said.

“But I think you would probably pop your clogs if it went untreated. Cellulitis when it gets going can be nasty and there was no question of not treating it.”