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A New York woman had to be hospitalized for days after she mistook a flesh-eating bug for a tiny bruise on her arm.
30-year-old Erin Rhoades, of Syracuse, went to bed one night with a small bruise on her arm and woke up the next morning vomiting uncontrollably.
By the time she finally made it to St. Joseph’s Hospital, Rhoades was already delirious, with a dangerously high fever.
According to The Daily Mail, Rhoades had already noticed the small rash just one day earlier and had it checked out in urgent care.
The doctor reportedly diagnosed Rhoades with cellulitis, an infection that plagues the deeper layers of the skin, and prescribed her antibiotics.
However, before she left that day, the doctor marked the edges of Rhoades’ rash and told her to go to the hospital if it began to spread.
Within a matter of hours, Rhoades’ entire arm was completely covered in dead tissue caused by the flesh-eating bug, which was later determined to be necrotizing fasciitis.
Over the next five days, Rhoades underwent five life-saving surgeries to remove large chunks of infected flesh all over her arm.
“They did all sorts of ultrasounds and CT scans on my arm. Then the doctor came in and said, ‘This is really serious, this can kill you, you can lose your arm,’” Rhoades recalled, The Daily Mail reported.
To make matters worse, Rhoades already suffers from the autoimmune disease lupus, so the medication she’d been taking actually weakened her body and made it difficult for her to fight the flesh-eating bug naturally.
After calling her husband, Ryan, a solider who was in the barracks in Kentucky, Rhoades made the painful decision to sign a consent form that allowed surgeons to remove her arm if it was absolutely necessary.
“I called Ryan and told him that I was going to lose my arm, and I didn’t even have a good story like going to war. He’s been abroad twice with the army, and I’m just hanging out at home,” she said.
Fortunately, Rhoades made it through her final surgery with flying colors and she did not have to have her arm removed.
While the cause of the flesh-eating bug still remains unknown, Rhoades is just thankful that she sought medical attention before it was too late.
