Woman who lost 3 limbs dances night away at 50th birthday
Christine Caron walking again with prosthetic limbs after months of rehabilitation
An Ottawa woman who lost three limbs this summer managed to dance the night away at her 50th birthday party, and is just $10,000 shy of a $100,000 fundraising goal to make her home more accessible.
Christine Caron, 49, was playing tug-of-war with her dogs in May when one of the dogs, a Shih Tzu mix named Buster, nipped her hand.
She didn't think anything of it, but three days later she was rushed to hospital and put in a coma for a month and a half.
Caron's wound had become infected with Capnocytophaga canimorsus, a common bacterium in a dog's saliva.
But what happened to Caron is rare. Only about 200 septic shock cases linked to the bacterium have been reported worldwide in the last 25 years, according to Health Canada.
"When I woke up my legs were black and my arm looked sort of mummified," Caron told CBC News in July.
Both of her legs were amputated below the knee. One of her arms was amputated at the elbow.
Now outfitted with prosthetics, Caron has been in rehabilitation at The Ottawa Hospital for months. She's had to have more surgery on her remaining hand and will be learning to use a prosthetic arm.
"I'm walking now on my own, and it's offered me a lot of freedoms that I didn't have before," she said. "It was a lot of work. It still is. I'm still learning a lot of things."
'I danced all night'
Caron celebrated her 50th birthday recently at a party thrown by her family.
"I came to my 50th clawing my way there, and I made it, and it was excellent ... And I danced, and I danced and I danced all night," she said.
"I just felt like I could fly. It was really something. They put a video together for me, and just thinking about it makes me cry. It was really something."
Caron was about to start a contract as an insurance broker before her infection, and has no private insurance or job.
Her family is hoping to raise $100,000 on the fundraising website Fundrazr to help pay for the prosthetics and accessibility renovations their home.
They're now just $10,000 shy of their goal.