An Oklahoma woman suffered multiple amputations after contracting a potentially deadly disease from a tick bite that ended up leaving her a quadruple amputee.
Jo Rogers, the 40-year-old in question, had been on vacation in Grand Lake Oklahoma. The woman noticed no peculiar events and returned from her trip, however, four days after her return, she began experiencing certain symptoms and was transported to the hospital the next day.
Apart from flu-like symptoms, Rogers also insisted that she had been experiencing pains in her arms and legs that would not subside.
At first, Rogers was treated for a multitude of suspected diseases, including Neisseria Meningitidis and West Nile Virus. It was only after extensive testing that doctors identified that the culprit of the woman’s flu-like symptoms was none other than Rickettsia rickettsii, a bacteria often transmitted by ticks, and the causing agent of Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
The woman’s arms and legs began turning blue and black and doctors had no alternative but to amputate all four of Jo’s limbs in order to save her life.
Normally, Rocky Mountain spotted fever can be cured with antibiotics and the mortality of the disease is low. Antibiotic treatment must be started during the early stages of infection and Jo sadly missed that time-frame, infectiologists explain.
CDC experts reveal that those who receive treatment early enough may not require hospitalization and experience relatively short recovery times, however, when left untreated, Rocky Mountain spotted fever has a mortality rate of over 75%.
Rogers is a mother of two sons, aged 12 and 17, who will luckily still grow up next to their mother, who is currently fighting for her life.
The disease affects hundreds of people yearly, though certain states have particularly high rates of infection, and Oklahoma is one of those states. Luckily, only 1 to 3 percent of all ticks carry Rickettsia rickettsii.
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