A Bug in My Bits!
When Tammy piled on weight, she never dreamed this could happen
Within a year, my weight had crept up from 13st to 22st
Tammy Peel, 39, Southend
Rolling myself across the kitchen floor in my wheelchair, I reached for the biscuits. Even stretching up to grab the packet was an effort.
My arms sank back into the seat, and I went back to the living room, which had recently become my bedroom.
I was too fat and in too much pain to climb the stairs.
Back agony
I’d been trim and active until I’d had my third child Molly-may in November 2004.
I thought that after a few days’ recovery, I’d be back on my feet, running round after my boys Ashley, then 9, and Charlie, 7, and tending to my new baby.
Instead, my husband Simon, then 29, took over parenting duties, as I struggled even to get out of bed.
My back was agony.
‘I don’t feel like a real mum,’ I complained.
I couldn’t even leave the house.
After going back and forth to the doctor, I was eventually diagnosed with degeneration of the discs in my back, as well as fibromyalgia, which causes pain all over the body.
Housebound and forced to use a wheelchair, I’d turned to food for comfort.
Sweet treats, such as cakes and ice cream, offered momentary relief.
Within a year, my weight had crept up from 13st to 22st.
At just 4ft 9in, my BMI was now dangerously high.
But I couldn’t exercise. And how could I give up junk food?
It was one of the few pleasures I had left.
Then, in 2006, I went to the doctor about my back, and explained I’d been feeling poorly.
I was weeing more regularly, extra thirsty, and so tired.
After tests, I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, caused by my unhealthy lifestyle.
‘You have to lose some weight,’ the doctor said.
It was the shocking news I needed to hear to spur me into action.
‘I need to eat healthier,’ I told Simon when I got back home.
Determined, I started choosing vegetables and fruit over processed meals and junk.
Gradually, the weight dropped off.
As I still wasn’t able to move around much, it was a very slow process. But, by Christmas last year, I was a much healthier 12st.
I looked better and I had more confidence.
My back felt a little bit better, too.
Ashley and Charlie were pleased to have their mum back. Molly-may, 12, had only ever known me as overweight and poorly.
Come the beginning of this year, we were all excited to be starting afresh.
The diabetes was still a daily
battle, though. And one horrible symptom it caused was horrible, painful boils between my legs.
Antibiotics usually did the trick. Only, on 10 January, I had a particularly bad one.
Sitting down was agony. And, within 24 hours, it was huge, red-raw, burning, with big, black spots and leaking fluid.
‘It’s getting bigger,’ I despaired to Simon.
So I went to the hospital, where doctors decided they needed to operate on it immediately.
Waking a few days later,
I was lying in a hospital bed with wires everywhere.
Disorientated, the first feeling to hit me was the crushing, searing pain between my legs.
‘What happened?’ I asked. It turned out that surgeons had burst the boil and had discovered I had necrotising fasciitis on my labia.
It’s a rare but serious bacterial infection, otherwise known as the ‘flesh-eating disease’, that destroys muscles, skin and tissue.
It had developed into sepsis, and I could’ve died.
During the four-hour surgery, tissue from my labia, as well as part of my thigh and belly, had to be removed to stop the disease spreading. But it had destroyed my vagina, taken my womanhood away.
I was discharged from the hospital days later, but nurses had to come and make home visits daily for eight weeks, to make sure I was free of infection. Refusing to look at myself down there, I was terrified I’d never be able to have sex again. ‘Just focus on getting better,’ Simon said, cuddling me. He was always my rock. Bed-bound again as the wound healed, slowly my pain eased.
So grateful
Finally, months later, I found the courage to look at my vagina in a mirror.
The whole right side seemed to have disappeared.
It was three months before Simon and I were able to make love again.
It wasn’t easy, and I don’t know whether I’ll ever be the same again.
I’m having reconstruction surgery soon, so hopefully things will look a little less ugly down there.
It’s made me feel like half the woman I was. But, every day, I feel thankful to be alive.
And I’m eternally grateful to Simon and my kids for always being there.
I still use a wheelchair for my back pain, but the diabetes is under control. And I’m optimistic for the future.
I only wish I’d taken better care of myself.
If I hadn’t let myself get so large, none of this would have happened.
I just wish I’d looked after myself better