Tanya Czernozukow, 43, never saw the seriousness in it when she nicked her right shin with a razor while shaving. She ignored the cut and it turned into a scab the size of a coin. Six months later it tripled in size until it was a “huge hole” and doctors spent 18 months trying to stop the aggressive infection from spreading up her thigh.
The mother tried tablets, creams and even maggots to get rid of the infection, but after months of agony, she agreed to have it amputated above the knee. She was eventually diagnosed with a chronic leg ulcer which developed into gangrene.
Fortunately, the operation halted the infection and Tanya now says she is pain-free and preparing to get on with her life.
Tanya, of Breaston, Derbyshire, said: “It has been an absolute nightmare. It was just a little nick. I just went ‘ouch’ and thought nothing of it. I’ve done it a thousand times before so I just put a bit of tissue on it and expected it to stop bleeding. Within a few weeks, it was green and black from my ankle right up to my knees. The pain was absolutely sheer hell. I had to take more and more painkillers. It was a constant feeling of thousands of needles being stuck into me.
“I used to sit with my leg in a plastic bag – there used to be that much fluid seeping out of it, I felt like I was in a horror movie. After a while, it looked like gangrene. It looked like I had a flesh-eating bug. It just kept growing and growing and growing.‘It got to the point when I just said to the doctors, ‘take it off. I want it gone’.
“When I first came round I got one hell of a shock. There was only inches of my leg left. It was just complete and utter shock. To see it gone was like waking up in a nightmare.”
