Joe Yates
A teacher thought she just had a common cold before things took a turn for the worst and later underwent a quadruple amputation.
It was a normal field trip for veteran high school teacher Sherri Moody, and was something that she had done countless times before.
She began to feel ill while visiting an amusement park for work in April 2023 and like many of us would, thought nothing of it.
Advert
But not long after, her flu-like symptoms worsened - so much so that the 51-year-old woke her husband up and told him she needs to visit the ER.
The Texan, who lives in suburban Houston, told TODAY: "I’ve never gone to the ER before in my life. I was very healthy, very in shape. I ate right, exercised.”
The decision to see a doctor came after a night of vomiting and struggling to breathe - a choice that would ultimately save her life.
She had, at some point, picked up Streptococcus bacteria which in turn led to double pneumonia, gripping not one but both lungs.
But horrifically for Sherri, it didn't end there as she contracted sepsis, a condition which the body responds improperly to an infection, and then septic shock - the most fatal stage of sepsis when blood pressure drops dangerously low.
Speaking to TODAY, husband David Moody said: “I had to Google what sepsis was. I had no idea. We’re pretty healthy people.
“I recognized real quick that we were in a severe situation. I was scared to pieces.”
Things only got worse as Sherri had been prescribed medication to treat her chronic arthritis, which she had been taking leading up to the incident.
It meant that her immune system had been lowered, or how 53-year-old David put it: "She had nothing to fight with. It’s like she went to war with no soldiers.”
She was placed into a medically induced coma and received drugs to push blood to her vital organs, which resulted in next to no blood circulation going to her legs and arms.
It took days but David began to see them change colour.
He said: “I literally watched my wife’s feet and hands die. They were black and they were mummified.”
When Sherri finally awoke, her husband broke the news to her.
Now, living without her arms and legs from the joints down, she lives her life full of optimism and told how it took crisis for her to discover that 'I’m a lot stronger than what I ever even thought I was'.
She added: “I’m very mentally strong. I just choose to be happy. … It’s not to say that I don’t have a breakdown every now and then and just cry a little bit.
"I don’t let it last long."