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Tampon was infected with bacteria
For more than a week, today's 27-year-old Joanna Cartwright was in an artificial coma. Your diagnosis: Toxic shock syndrome caused by a tampon.
Like many women, 27-year-old Joanna Cartwright from South Yorkshire, England, used tampons once a month. Never could the young mother have imagined that something as ordinary as a tampon would almost cost her his life.
When Joanna gets her period just before her 25th birthday and uses a tampon, she does not think about it as usual. But only a few days later, the mother of three complains about unusual complaints. Her hair and nails fall out. Several layers of skin begin to break loose and Joanna loses consciousness again and again.
In the hospital, the doctors make the diagnosis: toxic shock syndrome (TSS). It is triggered by a tampon infected with a certain bacterium. Joanna Cartwright is being hospitalized just in time. Your organs are already failing. On her 25th birthday, the doctors put Joanna into an artificial coma . The young mother barely escapes death.
When she awakes, Joanna experiences the next shock: she has lost her memory and can not even remember her three daughters Lacey (8), Nicole (7) and Scarlett-Rose (3). Opposite the mirror, she says, "When I woke up from the coma, I did not know what was happening around me, I could not remember anything."
Even the many greeting cards that she had received for her birthday, provided no evidence for Joanna. She could not even remember having her birthday. But Joanna not only lost her memory, she also had to learn to walk anew.
Fortunately, Joanna's memories gradually returned. But even today, more than two years after the toxic shock syndrome, the mother still has memory gaps. "I do not remember Scarlett's first steps or other milestones, like her first words or weaning." Even with the running it did not work immediately. Only through intensive physiotherapy could Joanna learn the movements again.
After a long and exhausting recovery process, Joanna Cartwright is (almost) now the woman she was before diagnosing Toxic Shock Syndrome . "It was a truly traumatic experience and I know there are parts of me that will never be the same again, but I'm just relieved that I made it and that my girls are still their mother I can be very happy. "
