I nearly died when flu symptoms turned out to be sepsis that left me with rotting legs
WHEN Skeeter Hockett came down with flu-like symptoms, she assumed she had picked up the seasonal winter bug.
But days later she started vomiting, coughing up blood and her temperature had sky-rocketed so had to be rushed to hospital.
The mum-of-two woke up two weeks later in March this year having been put in a coma - to be told by doctors that she needed her legs amputated.
Skeeter, 42, from Michigan, had actually developed sepsis - a life-threatening condition in which the body's immune system overreacts to an infection and starts attacking itself.
She was told that it had caused a lack of circulation to her legs and gangrene - or tissue death - was setting in on her toes.
But she begged doctors to delay the amputation to see if her body could grow healthy tissue.
She recalled: “When I woke up and they told me they were going to remove both my legs below the knee, but I was adamant they were not.
“I remember one of the medical staff saying that there was ‘a heartbeat’ still in my legs, so I just repeated this over and over to the doctors.
“In the end, they said they would wait it out and told me that if I had any further signs of infection, I had to let them know immediately.
“In the end, all my toes were amputated, but my legs were spared."
The teacher spent the next 42 days in hospital where she was closely monitored but unable to have visitors due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In late April, Skeeter was finally able to return home to her son Wilder, 13, and daughter Adaira, 7, where she began her long road to recovery.
She said: "It was an absolutely incredible feeling after spending so much time apart."
In July, she had a six hour surgery to remove all 10 of her toes to save her life, but luckily her legs had recovered enough to be spared.
Skeeter has had to take life one day at a time to cope with both the physical and mental side of her recovery.
Unable to return to work in the classroom, her immediate goal is to improve the distance she can walk, which is currently limited to 30ft.
In October, Skeeter underwent an operation to extend the length of her Achilles to make walking more manageable and has also had multiple skin grafts on her feet.
Skeeter said: “Trying to adapt to a ‘new normal’ has been one of the toughest things.
“I hate that phrase because I know my life will never be the same again.
“Before I loved to go berry picking and rock collecting and at the moment those things are just not possible.
“I was an elementary school teacher and now my work is walking from the kitchen to the couch.
“I have a lot of anger about what has happened. Sometimes I feel like there are toes stuck under the skin of my feet that I need to pull them out, but of course there’s nothing really there because my toes have been removed.
“If I overdo it and spend any prolonged period of time on my feet, then they swell up and become really painful and itchy.
“It’s frustrating, but I have to make sure I don’t push myself too hard.”
Despite her frustrations, Skeeter is very pragmatic when it comes to her ongoing recovery and is willing to take each day as it comes.
“The road is a long one ahead of me, but I just have to keep driving along it,” Skeeter said.
“I know that if I had waited any longer I almost certainly would not be here today.
“If anything is off with your body, you are your own best advocate.
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“For me now, it’s about taking it day by day, and step by step. Literally.”
Skeeter currently has medical consultations twice a week as part of her ongoing recovery.