A mother-of-two who nearly died after being struck down by flu is urging people to get vaccinated against the killer bug.

Helen Watts spent a week in a critical care unit in March and is still not well enough to return to work.

The 42-year-old, from Jeffreyston, said it frightened her children so much that after she came home, her young son checked her pulse at night to make sure she was still alive.

"And I think it was all because I didn't have the flu vaccine," said Mrs Watts, who is in the at-risk category because of her asthma.

In March, she came down with what she thought was a cold but which, after 24 hours, seemed more like a chest infection.

This exacerbated her asthma and she became so unwell that husband Lee took her to A&E at Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest.

Mrs Watts was given antibiotics and other medication and was admitted so tests could be carried out.

Within 24 hours, her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to the high dependency unit with what was later diagnosed as the H1N1 strain - more commonly known as swine flu.

"I was very poorly and on the brink of being ventilated," Mrs Watts said.

"It did improve after that, but I was in HDU (high dependency unit) for a week and in hospital for about two weeks afterwards being very poorly.

"The doctors told me I am lucky to be here."

Seven months later, Mrs Watts is still not well enough to return to her job as an administrator with a photographic business.

Although she is improving, her lungs are only working at 70% capacity and she has to take a lot of steroids.

She said it had all been very tough on her family, especially on son Harri, aged 11, and 14-year-old daughter Lauren.

"People were getting upset seeing me with all the machines, and it was very intimidating for the children," Mrs Watts said.

"It really affected them. After I came home Harri, who was aged 10 then, was actually checking my pulse in the early hours to make sure I was still alive.

"They wouldn't let me go anywhere. They wanted to know where I was all the time.

"It was hard on my husband too because he had to deal with everything.

"But everyone was brilliant. I'm just very lucky I've got such a good family, and friends were fantastic too."

She is now taking no chances and arrived half an hour early to have this winter's flu vaccine on the day it was available at her GP surgery - with Harri there to have it too.

"We're not going to miss out on any flu vaccination ever again. We've had a hard lesson to learn," she added.

Mrs Watts's twin sister Sam Robinson has always had the flu vaccine because she works as a nurse at Neath Port Talbot Hospital.

"To see my twin sister so poorly like that was very traumatic," Mrs Robinson, from Carmarthen, said.

"So for me now it's not just about protecting patients - I'm urging people to do it for their families too. Like Helen said, it's the whole family that is affected, not just the person who is ill."

The national beat flu campaign has been launched this week.

Find out more by visiting www.beatflu.org or www.curwchffliw.org or by finding Beat Flu or Curwch Ffliw on Twitter and Facebook.