i watched My Leg Rot!
A bug was eating Stacey alive...
My head was pounding, I had the sweats and couldn’t stop shivering. ‘I think I’m coming down with something,’ I said to my boyfriend Rich, 32.
‘Let’s have an early night,’ he suggested.
So I dosed up on paracetamol and headed to bed, hoping to feel better in the morning.
In fact, I just felt worse. Nevertheless, I went in to my job as a business development manager.
I convinced myself it was a cold or the flu and that I’d shake it off soon enough.
But, hours later, concerned colleagues ordered me to go home after I couldn’t do anything except sit at my desk shaking and flipping between feeling hot and cold.
The next day, in June last year, I was due to fly to Germany for work.
‘Maybe you should cancel?’ Rich suggested.
‘No, I’ll be fine by the time I get there,’ I told him.
Getting worse
I was determined not to let being a bit under the weather stop me from getting on with things.
So I boarded the plane and hoped for the best.
But right through the flight, I was shaking uncontrollably.
After we landed, I skipped dinner to go straight to bed.
The next day, I still didn’t feel any better, but I dosed up on cold remedies and headed to the meeting.
All the way through it, I had to fight to keep my body upright. I just wanted to lie down.
Eventually, the meeting ended – but I still had the flight home to get through.
My boss Brian suggested seeing a doctor in Germany.
‘I just want to go home,’
I told him.
A few hours later, while waiting at the airport, I suddenly had a shooting pain up my left leg.
Gasping in pain, I touched my leg. It was boiling hot.
I rushed off to the loo so that I could pull my tights down and take a proper look.
I could hardly believe it. My whole thigh was covered in a red patchy rash...
Where had that come from?
I took a picture on my phone and sent it to Rich. Let’s get you checked out when you get home, he replied.
At around 4am, I finally arrived home and climbed into bed next to Rich.
But minutes later, I leapt back out. Just the weight of the duvet on my leg was causing me agony.
Part of me just wanted to go to sleep and wait until the morning before going to my GP. But the other part of me knew that I needed help.
So I called 111.
‘They said to go straight to A&E,’ I told Rich, hanging up.
At Derriford Hospital, I was quickly examined by a doctor – but, as he prodded my leg, I howled in agony.
I started to drift in and out of consciousnesscon as the medics did an ultrasound of my thigh.
Then, right in front of my eyes, my thigh began to turn black. Every few minutes, a new patch emerged.
I watched in complete horror as I could see my flesh
Right in front of my eyes, my thigh began to turn black
rotting and dying.
‘What’s going on?’ I cried.
I was diagnosed with necrotising fasciitis – also known as a ‘flesh-eating’ disease.
I was horrified, but I barely had time to think about it.
Plans to give me a CT scan were quickly scrapped so that I could have emergency surgery.
Eighteen hours later, I woke up in Intensive Care.
While I was under, Rich and my mum Diane, 62, had been warned that my life was hanging in the balance. Even if
I did pull through, I might need my leg amputated from the hip down...
Luckily, my leg was saved.
However, pounds of dead flesh had to be cut away from my thigh to get rid of the disease.
Peering down at the bandages, I shuddered.
Huge hole
Over the next two weeks, I had five more operations as surgeons fought to stitch together the flesh.
Soon after, I was finally able to get up and hobble around, so I was allowed to go home.
A few days later, my wound began to weep.
I saw my nurse, who cut open a few stitches to see what was going on.
As she did so, two litres of bright yellow fluid gushed out.
I’d got an infection and the wound which had begun to heal was wide open again.
The hole in my leg was so huge that when I returned to hospital, a doctor put his whole hand inside my leg to check it!
It was a huge setback and it took three months for my leg to begin to heal properly.
Since then, I’ve been trying to figure out how I may have got necrotising fasciitis.
Doctors said it usually enters the body through a scratch or a bite, but I can’t remember anything like that. A year on, it’s still a mystery.
Although I’ve been left with horrific scars, and I can’t ever see me having the confidence to wear shorts or a skirt when I’m out, I feel extremely lucky to have survived and to have both legs.
I know that if I hadn’t gone to hospital when I did, I probably wouldn’t be here.
And that’s a whole lot worse than having to wear trousers on holiday.
i’m so LUCKY To BE STANDING HERE TODAY!