Flesh-eating disease strikes new mother of twins

Lana Kuykendall, 36, was only home for 13 hours with her newborn twins and husband when she returned to the hospital

Lana Kuykendall is a trained paramedic so when a quickly growing bruise was causing severe pain, she knew something was wrong. Her husband Darren, took her to the hospital where they watched in horror as the infection visibly spread throughout her leg.

The rapid spreading bruise was quickly diagnosed as Necrotizing fasciitis, flesh-eating bacteria. Within 90 minutes she was in the emergency room where doctors removed the dead, infected flesh from her leg, hoping that they could stop the bacteria from spreading.

‘And the longer she sat there, the bigger that spot got. It was initially the size of a 3-by-5 index card. But it got bigger and bigger,’ Mr Kuykendall, a firefighter, told the newspaper. ‘It moved a quarter of an inch in half an hour. Then the high-risk OB physician had a suspicion of what it was.’

The delivery of Ian and and Abigail had gone smoothly, expect for the minor fact that the mother had required some blood. The next day Lana had sever leg cramps and could not walk, while still in the hospital the doctor ran some tests but could find nothing. So they were released to go home.

The next morning Lana discovered the strange lesion on the back of her left leg and thinking it was a blood clot they returned to the hospital.

Mrs Kuykendall is currently breathing through a tube in intensive care unit of the Greenville Memorial Hospital. The newborns have not been infected.