BRISBANE, Australia - An Australian woman caught a serious infection after using her friend’s makeup brush and will now spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
Jo Gilchrist, 27, was hospitalized in February after experiencing severe pain, according to The Daily Mail.
Gilchrist, who has one child, tells The Daily Mail it took doctors a long time to determine what was wrong. Her body started to go numb and she lost feeling in her legs.
A staph infection invaded her body and eventually her spine.
"They said (the numbness) would go all the way up my arms and into my chest and when that happened I'd have to be put in an induced coma and learn to breathe again," she said.
Doctors eventually determined Gilchrist contracted community-associated MRSA - an antibiotic-resistant form of golden staph.
“The only thing we can put it down to is the makeup brush,” she said. “My friend did have a staph infection on her face and I was using her brush just before. I had no idea that could even happen, I used to share with my friends all the time."
The infection damaged her spine so severely she will never walk again and will be confined to a wheelchair.
“I was so lucky it went to my spine... if it went to my brain I would have died and if it went to my limbs they would have been amputated,” she said.
"I feel like I have a second chance at life," she told The Daily Mail. "Everything happens for a reason, I've definitely got my fight back for life."
