(myFOXhouston.com)
A Texas woman who had just given birth to her third child has lost all of her limbs after a severe infection caused her major organs to fail.
Five days after Katy Hayes gave birth to her daughter, Arielle, she became gravely ill, myFOXHouston.com reported.
"I started to have a lot of pain, I remember my belly hurt a lot," Hayes said.
Doctors could not determine what was wrong with her.
"They saw my bloated belly and said, 'We have got to operate; there is no other way. This woman is going to die if we do not do something,'” she said. “They opened me up and found out my uterus, ovaries and large intestine were all turned to jelly, so they took it all out right then and there."
After a short period of improvement following the surgery, Hayes slipped into a coma and all her major organs started to fail. She was airlifted to specialists in Dallas, who diagnosed her with a Strep A infection.
Doctors told Hayes and her husband if they did not amputate her arms and legs - she would die.
"It was the hardest decision for my husband to make. He majorly broke down. It was a very tough day for him. He wondered if I was ever going to forgive him. I said, 'Honey, you saved my life! Of course I'm going to forgive you!'," said Hayes.
Hayes made it out of that hospital and is back at home in Kingwood learning how to be a mother and wife without her arms and legs. With help from her family and enough determination, she said she knows she’ll make it.
She is now preparing for a two-week training period to learn how to use prosthetic arms and legs.
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