An infected cat scratch caused a woman to fight for her life after contracting a potentially deadly disease. Shirley Hair, who is 65, fell ill after a scratch on the hand from her Siamese cat, Chan, became infected.
Shirley, who is a grandmother of five, began to feel dizzy, lost her appetite and felt fatigued. She thought she had a bad flu, but in reality she was near death.
When Shirley was scratched by her kitty, she didn’t think much of it. Cat scratches happen all the time, and they’re rarely more than a little annoying. However, Shirley states, the day she got the scratch from Chan, she realized it was quite deep and could be an issue.
”The day he scratched me I’d been gardening, I tried to pick him up for a cuddle but he wasn’t having it. The scratch was quite deep, but I didn’t think much of it until I started to get flu-like symptoms and totally lost my appetite. A doctor came out to see me and prescribed antibiotics, but after a few days I was feeling worse than ever.”
“Then my arm began to get red and started swelling up really fast. It was scary. I was rushed into hospital and I was terrified as by that point I’d realized this was something very serious.” It turned out, Shirley had a rare disease called Necrotizing Fasciitis, which causes the soft tissue of the body to break down.
Doctors had to operate on her, removing the infected tissue from her hand where the cat scratched her. She was put into a medically-induced coma for five days so she could rest and recover from the surgery. She would go on to spend the next two months recovering and fighting complications from the surgery.
As for Chan the Cat, he was re-homed successfully. Shirley stated “After all that happened I decided I really couldn’t face Chan the cat anymore so my daughter Zoe volunteered to have him. She popped him in a basket and took him home to Wales on the train. She loves animals and isn’t really fazed by much at all.
”Our lovely golden Labrador Finn is glad to see the back of Chan too, after having his ears bitten constantly, he can relax now.” Shirley is now back home, fully recovered from her ordeal.
