I lost half my face after catching a flesh eating bug – but it’s helped me find love

But she grew worried when her face started swelling the next day.

"My eye had started going black, but nowhere near where the cut was," she recalled.

Then she started getting black blisters around her eye socket and underneath her eye.

Her daughter Jayde Stammers, 31, called 999 after watching Donna get increasingly unwell.

The mum-of-five was rushed to hospital.

At St James Hospital in Leeds, doctors were able to put a name to Donna's frightening symptoms - they said she was infected with necrotising fasciitis.

The rare and potentially lethal bacteria was eating away at her face and terrifyingly making its way to her brain.

It was dissolving her flesh at a rate of three centimetres an hour, Donna said.

"I had life-saving surgery where they literally had to remove half of my face. They were working against the clock," Donna said.

Doctors doubted whether she would be able to pull through and warned her kids to prepare for the worst.

The mum-of-five survived the surgery but suffered sepsis and kidney failure, slipping into a four-day coma.

She remained on life support for several weeks after waking up.

Afterwards, Donna had skin cut from her thigh and transplanted onto her face in a gruelling 11-hour surgery. Another 15 or 16 surgeries followed.

Donna is now waiting to have a procedure that will lift up her mouth on one side.

She'll also have the skin graft on her face tattooed so the colour matches the rest of her face.

She hopes these will be the last treatments she'll have to undergo.

Following the horrific ordeal, Donna confessed her hopes of meeting someone were very low.

But meet someone she did - and they're getting married.