A Texas high school teacher whose hands and feet turned black and “mummified” and had all of her limbs amputated after a seemingly routine infection says she is choosing to be happy despite her terrifying ordeal.
Sherry Moody, a 51-year-old student teacher in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, started feeling like she might have a cold during a school trip in April 2023, but she paid little attention to it.
However, within a few days she noticed that she had a high fever. One night, after her breathing difficulties woke her up, she went to the hospital.
“I’ve never been to the ER in my life,” Sherry said. today.com. “I was very healthy and in great shape. I ate right and exercised.”
Doctors determined she had double pneumonia, claiming it was caused by streptococcus, the bacterium that causes strep throat.
Her body was in septic shock. This is a life-threatening reaction to an infection that significantly lowers her body’s blood pressure.
“I had to Google what sepsis was. I had no idea. We’re very healthy people,” her husband David told TODAY.
“I knew right away that we were in a tough situation. It was scary as hell.”
Further complicating matters, Sherry was taking arthritis medications that weakened her body’s ability to fight infections.
David described Sherry’s ordeal as “like being hit by a Category 5 hurricane.”
“She had nothing to fight for. It was like going to war without soldiers.”
Cherie, a mother of an adult son, was put into a coma by doctors and treated with drugs to try to restore blood flow to her vital organs, but at the cost of impaired circulation to her arms and legs. Ta.
“I literally watched my wife’s legs and hands die,” David said.
A horrifying photo shows just that. Sherry sits on the edge of his hospital bed, tubes running from his body, his black, limp arms and legs dangling by his sides.
“They were black and mummified,” he added.
After saving Shelly’s life, doctors determined that her arms and legs would need to be amputated below the elbow and knee. She said today that she cried but remained calm after hearing her life-changing news.
The amputation took place in June 2023, and by August she was home.
David and Sherry, high school sweethearts who graduated from the same high school where Sherry taught, are now adjusting to the new reality of their life together.
He quit his job to care for his wife full time.
But both tried to choose happiness and not define themselves by hardship.
“I just choose to be happy,” Sherry said. “It’s not like I don’t get sick every now and then and cry a little bit. I’m not going to let that go on for long.”
David remains in awe of his wife’s strength and says he feels like it was harder for her to stay undaunted.
“She’s really great. She’s had a harder time,” he said today.
“We both talk about our blessings together. We talk about things that are going well in our time and in our lives,” David added.
Friends set up a GoFundMe campaign and raised more than $88,000 for the couple.
Septic shock affects approximately 750,000 Americans each year. According to the American Thoracic Society.
Approximately 30% of patients who develop septic shock or severe sepsis die from this condition, which can be caused by common infections.
