“I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy “Tommy”, on October 2nd 1999. During
labour I was given an epidural, which is
now thought to have been the cause of
all my problems. An abscess formed in my back and I was eventually diagnosed with
the ‘flesh eating disease’, Necrotising Fasciitis Streptococcus A.

The disease was literally eating the soft tissues of my legs. My internal organs were affected too and, as I lay unconscious, my family were told every day for months, that more and more of me had to be cut away and that I wouldn’t survive. There was a serious risk that my leg might have to be amputated.

When I woke up I didn’t know what was going on except that I was in agony and, on high levels of Morphine, I thought everyone was trying to kill me. I was so confused I didn’t even know that I had had a baby.

About one third of the skin, fat and muscle of my leg had been removed and most of the right side of my stomach was a large, gaping hole.

At the Royal Free Hospital, I was given skin grafts on my leg and my stomach was allowed to close naturally. I was in a specialised sand bed for months unable to move but, thanks to my wonderful doctors – some sleeping at the Hospital to be on call for emergency surgery - I pulled through; and I kept my leg. I owe so much to them, the nurses, physiotherapists, pharmacists and others. It is because of their skills and care that I am still alive and that my son still has his mother.

My body is still being reconstructed by the surgeons. But now I wear a bikini on the beach when I once thought I never would again. My surgeons have told me that I owe my life to the advances in reconstructive surgery that have taken place, at an amazing speed, over the last 20 years. Much of that is down to research and, through the work of the Healing Foundation (and more funding), I hope that more people in the future will have the chance that I had both to live, and to enjoy a fulfilled life, after disfigurement and trauma.”