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What started as a sore throat for Sherri Moody ended with the schoolteacher being hospitalised and losing all four of her limbs.
Sherri (51), from Texas in the US, wasn't feeling great and thought perhaps she was dehydrated or that her sore throat was a sign that she was coming down with the flu.
When she began struggling to breathe, her husband, David (53) took her to hospital where the couple were told she had pneumonia in her lungs, caused by streptococcus bacteria.
She'd first started feeling ill after a school field trip, she recalls.
“I’d never gone to the ER before in my life,” Sherri said in an interview.
“I was very healthy, very in shape, I ate right and exercised.”
Two days after going to the ER, in April last year, her kidneys and lungs started to shut down as a result of septic shock – a widespread infection that causes extremely low blood pressure and organ failure.
“I had to Google what sepsis was,” David recalled. “I had no idea. I was scared to pieces.”
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Doctors are still unsure how Sherri was infected with the streptococcus bacteria in the first place, but have speculated that because she was using medication for rheumatoid arthritis her immune system was weakened, making her susceptible to infection.
She was put in a medically induced coma and treated but the treatment compromised blood circulation to her extremities.
“Her arms and legs were black, they were mummified,” David said.
It was agonising for him to be told that his wife's legs and arms needed to be amputated.
Sherri spent four months in hospital and another month in rehab learning to adjust to life without her arms and legs.
It hasn't been easy, says Sherri, but she does her best to remain positive.
"I really just tried to think about how I could use this as a blessing and not fall into depression. I just choose to be happy.
“It’s not to say that I don’t have a breakdown every now and then and just cry a little bit, but I don’t let it last long.”
Friends have set up a GoFundMe to help the family with their medical bills and to raise money for prosthetic limbs, which Sherri hopes to get at some point.
“There’s a dark road that we could easily go down ... I know Sherri smiles and she is beautiful and it’s very authentic,” David told Click2Houston.
“I learned all kinds of things as far as how to do my hair and makeup and brush my teeth and eat,” Sherri said, adding that her daughter-in-law Mika, who is married to their son, Jake, helps her a lot.
“We remind each other to choose joy in the day,” she said. “I’m a lot stronger than I ever even thought I was."
SOURCES: TODAY.COM, ABC7CHICAGO.COM, CLICK2HOUSTON.COM
