HOLLAND, Mich. — A Holland resident is speaking out after surviving necrotizing fasciitis, a rare but often fatal bacterial infection she contracted following a routine ovarian surgery in 2023.
Brenna Wedeven underwent surgery for an ovarian cyst when she began experiencing symptoms that rapidly worsened.
“The next day, I woke up and I had a fever, and then I started vomiting, and the excruciating pain just kept getting 10 times worse,” Wedeven said.
Although the surgical site appeared minor, she described the pain as “undescribable,” comparing it to “someone tearing apart your insides.”
Initially misdiagnosed with cellulitis at an emergency room, Wedeven’s condition deteriorated until she sought a second opinion at a different hospital.
“I literally couldn’t even walk. My body was shutting down,” she said.
At Corewell Health Zeeland Hospital, staff admitted her to the ICU within minutes and performed emergency surgery.
"He shot me up with lidocaine in my stomach, and he cut me open while I was awake. And as soon as he cut me open, the most foul odor, and I will never forget it, and I'm sure everyone in that room will never forget that smell," said Wedeven.
That's when physicians knew they needed another opinion.
"Called Infectious Disease. And they looked at my stomach over Zoom, and said, you immediately needed to get over to Butterworth, to our trauma floor so you can endure your first emergency debriefment surgery," Wedeven explained.
She spent about a month at Corewell Health in Grand Rapids. In total, she endured four surgeries in a week to remove the infection.
“My last surgery to know if they were going to save my life was on my birthday,” Wedeven said. "Luckily, they were able to scrape everything out and place the wound back on. I knew that if I were to wake up with the wound vac, I knew that I was in the clear."
Necrotizing fasciitis, sometimes called "flesh-eating bacteria," is rare but fast-moving and deadly if not promptly treated.
“It causes tissue death. It can be caused by a variety of different bacteria,” said Dr. Joshua Donkin, an infectious diseases physician with Corewell Health in Grand Rapids. “Typically, necrotizing fasciitis will have very little outward appearance, but will be incredibly painful. And that’s called pain out of proportion.”
Dr. Donkin explained the infection requires immediate surgical intervention because antibiotics alone cannot reach the dead tissue. The mortality rate ranges from 10% to 20%.
Wedeven, who works as a medical model builder, now advocates for greater awareness of necrotizing fasciitis and its warning signs, particularly when pain seems disproportionate to the wound's appearance.
“If proper intervention came sooner, I could have endured less trauma,” she said. “Time is of the essence, and it needs to be taken more seriously.”
Both Wedeven and Dr. Donkin urged vigilance for unexplained, severe pain following surgery or injury and emphasized the importance of seeking additional medical opinions if symptoms escalate.
“You know yourself best,” Wedeven said. “If you truly feel like you’re not being heard and seen, go get a second, go get a third, go get a fourth opinion, until you feel heard and seen.”
Dr. Donkin added that anyone can be at risk, noting, “It can happen to anybody… from any kind of break in the integrity of your skin.”
He acknowledged Wedeven’s efforts to spread awareness, saying, “It takes a lot of bravery for a patient to speak out like this, and I commend her.”
Now that she's recovered, Wedeven hopes her experience will help others avoid needless suffering.
“If I wouldn’t have gotten that second opinion, I wouldn’t be here today,” she said.
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