Coming round after being placed in a medically induced coma and having undergone life saving surgery, there was only one thing on little Katie Groome's mind.

She desperately wanted McDonald's chicken nuggets.

"When they were trying to bring her out of the coma she was trying to take her tube out, she couldn't bear the thought of this tube being down her throat," explains her mother, also named Katie.

"All she wanted was food, all she wanted was to eat again because she was getting nasogastric feeding.

"She didn't want to lie in the bed, she would try and get up and go to the toilet even though she was in a lot of pain.

"She's a wee fighter."

Katie had just undergone life saving surgery to remove dead tissue from her arm after her mother, who is a nurse, spotted a purple patch on her shoulder.

The little girl from Wishaw had developed deadly necrotising fasciitis, a one-in-a-million complication after suffering from chickenpox.

The rare bacterial infection attacks tissue beneath the skin, affecting muscles and organs and releases toxins that damage nearby tissue - often called 'flesh eating disease'.

The then-five-year-old had been suffering from chickenpox in early December but was taking the illness in her stride according to her mother. But soon she became lethargic, her right arm heavy and swollen, turning what Katie describes as a 'firey red'.

After her local GP rushed out to visit the child when she couldn't move the limb, a code red ambulance call whisked her away from her home to the local Wishaw General Hospital, where staff struggled to find veins in the little girl's arms, stumped as to the reason why.

Specialists from every possible area attempted to draw blood from the youngster but failed. Her veins had collapsed and staff struggled to give her any medicines as the five-year-old began to go into renal and cardiac failure.

Placed in a medically induced coma, she was transferred to Glasgow's Royal Hospital for Children for treatment, her mother forced to wait for hours before hearing how her little girl was.

She says: "When they finally let me into her room it was quite a shock. She was on a ventilator, there were all these machines plugged into her and it was then I noticed there was a purple mark on her shoulder, it hadn't been there previously."

She alerted the staff immediately where it was discovered part of Katie's skin tissue was dying, having developed the flesh eating bug.

Katie was immediately rushed into theatre for a three and a half hour lifesaving surgery, surgeons cutting away the dead flesh from the little girl's shoulder to save her life.

"They had to cut away about 45 centimetres right across her chest, her shoulder and into her back," Katie explains.

"They told us over the next 24 hours were critical. They didn't know if she was going to pull through or not."

Thankfully the youngster survived, with doctors and nurses remarking on the child's strength during her ordeal in spite of her age.

"It was definitely her fighting spirit that got her through it," her mother adds.

For five weeks Katie remained in hospital, forced to wear a special dressing usually reserved for burn victims as she underwent a skin graft from her thigh and ten surgeries, even spending her sixth birthday in the children's ward.

While Katie's family are relieved she pulled through, the effect of developing necrotising fasciitis has made a lasting impact on the little girl. A keen gymnast, she hasn't returned to practice and doesn't go out to play as her low-stamina means she can't keep up with her friends.

The wound in her shoulder has left a deep indentation which can been seen through her clothing. She'll require further surgery as she grows, with cosmetic surgery on the cards. She will likely be a patient at the hospital well into her teenage years following her ordeal.

"Even now I have my moments," her mother Katie admits. "I still get quite upset when I look at her and we've got to moisturise her skin four times a day. You're faced with it every single day, this huge scar that she's got.

"It's quite heartbreaking as a mother to see that and she's very clingy with me. I can hardly move for her, I'm lucky I can come to my work. She's still sleeping in beside me at night, she won't sleep in her own bed."

Katie hopes that her daughter alongside her father Thomas and older sisters Andrea and Anneliese can come together to talk with professionals about the family's ordeal and are hoping for a brighter future as Katie continues to recover.

Since her traumatic time in hospital in December, the youngster has returned to St Brendan's Primary in Motherwell, recently starting primary three. Her family now plan to raise money for the Royal Hospital for Children to say thank you for the lifesaving treatment the little girl received.