I thought I had just a small cut while out gardening – but I caught a FLESH-EATING bug from my flower beds
A WOMAN thought she only had a small cut – but nearly died after catching a flesh-eating bug from her flower beds.
Louise Fawcett, 58, was enjoying a spot of gardening at her Chesterfield home and thought nothing when she scraped her foot on some shingle in April this year.
However, when it rapidly began to swell up, the vision rehabilitation officer felt “pretty unwell”.
Louise, from Yorkshire, said: “I couldn’t wear shoes for dinner for Mark’s birthday. I couldn’t put any weight on it,” Louise explained.
The redness was creeping. It was changing before their eyes
Louise Fawcett
She gave it a few days before going to her GP – who prescribed her antibiotics for an infection called cellulitis.
But to Louise’s horror, she woke up in absolute agony the following morning and her foot was “very purple”.
“The next morning I noticed the ankle looked like it had a port wine birthmark. It was very purple,” she added.
“I thought it was sepsis.”
Quick thinking husband Mark, 59, rushed his wife to Chesterfield Royal Hospital for blood tests.
Louise said: “They took me into a little room.
“The redness was creeping. It was changing before their eyes.
“They thought I might lose my life or my leg.”
Test revealed the 58-year-old had contracted a flesh-eating bug called necrotising fasciitis.
Surgeons immediately raced her into theatre and opened up her foot to cut out the bug by removing infected tissue.
She spent three days in intensive care, underwent seven operations, including a skin graft from her thigh, and was finally allowed home after three weeks of treatment.
Louise believes she caught the life-threating bug from soil in her garden.
She thinks it entered into her blood stream through a tiny cut she got on her foot.
“I must have got a tiny cut. I think I caught it from the soil,” she explained.
“Mark, my husband, has been busy with our garden. It’s full of rubble.
Necrotising fasciitis
NECROTISING fasciitis, also known as the flesh-eating bug, is a life-threatening infection.
Symptoms of necrotising fasciitis can develop quickly within hours or over a few days.
It can happen if a wound gets infected.
Hospital treatment is required immediately.
At first you may have:
- intense pain or loss of feeling near to a cut or wound – the pain may seem much worse than you would usually expect from a cut or wound
- swelling of the skin around the affected area
- flu-like symptoms, such as a high temperature, headache and tiredness
Later symptoms can include:
- being sick (vomiting) and diarrhoea
- confusion
- black, purple or grey blotches and blisters on the skin (these may be less obvious on black or brown skin)
“I’m unlucky to get it but lucky to be alive.
“I can’t believe it happened somewhere so suburban as Chesterfield.”
Louise was thankful to be discharged on May 16, 2024 with a successful skin graft.
She now has a pair of crutches to aid her walking and has to keep up with physio exercises.
‘GLAD TO BE ALIVE’
The 58-year-old added: “They told me it healed. I was crying with joy.
“I’m here. I’m glad to be alive.”
Louise has a brace to support her ankle when she sits so it stays at 90 degrees.
But she still struggles to look at it after the surgeries.
“I have to bathe my foot,” she said.
“I can’t look at it. It doesn’t feel like my foot.
“It feels like a mannequins foot.”
Louise had to postpone the launch of her business Sight Loss Solutions because of the trauma.
But bravely planned to open her practice on June 16, 2024.
She wishes to hold individual and group session and also support the carers of people who have experienced sight loss.