An American woman has for the first time spoken about how her life changed after she lost not only her unborn baby, but four of her limbs too when her cervix opened to early, The Metro reports.
In 2017, 32-year-old Kayleigh Ferguson-Walker was six months pregnant when she suddenly developed flu-like symptoms.
Her husband rushed her to a hospital near their home in Naples, Florida, where her health quickly deteriorated.Along with her heart rate skyrocketing, her blood pressure dropped and then her kidneys began to fail.
To save her baby, doctors induced labour but were unable to rescue her son.
Kayleigh is believed to have suffered from an incompetent cervix, which according to Mayo Clinic occurs when “weak cervical tissue causes or contributes to premature birth or the loss of an otherwise healthy pregnancy”.
To save Kayleigh’s life, doctors place her in a two-week coma to deal with her ailing health. When she woke up, not only did she have to deal with the loss of her child – a son who she had already given a name – she also discovered her arms and legs were black and necrotic, meaning her tissue had died from lack of blood flow.
She was then transferred to another facility where doctors told her she would lose all four limbs.
“I accepted the fact that it needed to be done,” Kayleigh says.
Two years on from her horror experience, Kayleigh is now in a wheelchair and enjoying life with her four-year-old daughter, Aaliyah.
“I’ve been thinking positively,” she told News-Press.
“Thinking I have to go on in life and do things creatively. Take things one day at a time.”
Since being wheelchair-bound, she’s mastered feeding herself, putting on her makeup, combing her hair and getting herself around her parents’ home with the help of an electric wheelchair and a left-arm prosthetic with a hook attached.
“Being able to do that felt good,” she said about now being able to move herself from her bed to her wheelchair and vice versa. “Once I got over the fear, the task became so much easier.”
Kayleigh remains upbeat about life despite what she’s been through,
“I didn’t want to take it on as something impossible to live with, to live through. The triumph is still being here. Having a family, being a wife and mom.”
Sources: News-Press, Metro, Mayo Clinic
