We’re all busy counting down the New Year, but for some people, 2024 can’t come soon enough. The same goes for Anneke, who became critically ill this year and turned out to have a flesh-eating bacteria. She crawled through the eye of the needle.
A lot of pain
“It started at the end of January with a slight pain in my groin,” says Anneke in Grazia. “The pain kept getting worse and at one point I also got a fever. After some Googling, I thought it was an inguinal hernia, but I didn’t have any other important symptoms, such as swelling.” Her husband was traveling for work at the time, so she was on her own at home. “I lay in bed for days, I was in so much pain that I could only lie on my back. When my husband came home after a few days, he was terrified. I was in such bad shape,” she reflects.
Emergency surgery
“The GP made a house call and I had to go straight to the emergency room,” Anneke continues. “It turned out that I had a deadly, flesh-eating bacteria. Unfortunately, it was no longer possible to find out how I got it, but my kidneys were no longer functioning.” She therefore underwent emergency surgery. “The doctors said I was probably just in time. If more organs had failed, they might not have been able to do anything for me,” she says.
“The strange thing was that everything passed me by at that moment. The pain made it impossible for me to think clearly. More than 24 hours after the operation, I woke up again with a large open wound in my abdomen. The bacteria had been removed with some healthy tissue still surrounding it. To give my body some rest, I was temporarily put into an artificial coma,” says Anneke. “Then I had to keep my wound open for a week to see if the bacteria were really gone. Irritating the wound was horrible. Each time I endured it crying because it hurt like hell. After a special mat was placed in my abdomen to replace the removed tissue, the wound was sutured.”
Months of recovery
“Then the months-long recovery began,” says Anneke. “Because the bacteria had caused quite a bit of damage to my body, I had to relearn a number of things. Almost all movements, such as turning, sitting, standing up and walking, were no longer self-evident and that was very intense.” Fortunately, things are now going well again and she is extremely grateful that she survived. “Only later did I read that flesh-eating bacteria are rare. But if you have it, there is a real chance you will die from it. So I really got through the eye of the needle this year and I realize that all too well.”
Want to read more stories from women who are done with 2023? You can read it in our Real Life Special in the latest Grazia. Now in store!
Text: Renée Brouwer | Image: Adobe Stock
2023-12-30 13:48:13
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