Flesh-Eating Disease Latest Battle For Arizona Teacher With Flu

PEORIA, AZ — Christin Lipinski woke up on a typical Thursday at her home in Peoria feeling a little under the weather. Lipinski, a special education teacher at Oakwood Elementary School, tried to work through it, but something wasn't right with her armpit. She felt an odd pain, almost like someone was pushing it really hard with a finger. And while she didn't know it then, that pain signaled this was no ordinary flu that she'd brought home from school — it was a flesh-eating infection.

Her symptoms didn't improve, so Lipinski, 36, left work early Jan. 11 and headed to a health care clinic, her husband, Nathan Lipinski, tells Patch. Flu tests came back negative, but that wasn't unheard of — false negatives aren't all that uncommon. They gave her an antiviral medicine to treat the flu and sent her home.

But the pain intensified.

A day later, she was in the emergency room with chest pains, Nathan says. An electrocardiogram test looking for heart issues came back negative. This time, though, a flu test came back positive. The Lipinski's were sent home, Nathan says, without further exploration into what was actually happening to her.

They went to Dignity Health Care General Hospital on Saturday, but medical staff there were also unable to figure out what was going on. But they noticed Christin's vital signs were slightly below normal, so the doctor decided to have Christin rushed to a trauma center at St Joseph's Hospital.

"Had the doctor just sent us home, this story would most likely have had an even more tragic ending," Nathan says.

Christin's pain became excruciating. Doctors biopsied the area and found multiple signs that this wasn't just a bacterial infection. The area was, in Nathan's words, discolored purplish. Blisters started forming. The biopsy confirmed it was actually a rare and aggressive strain of necrotizing fasciitis: a serious bacterial infection that destroys tissue under the skin.

While doctors weren't sure how she contracted it — the bacteria is found on just about everybody's skin — they performed surgery, removing tissue from her left side. More than 30 percent of her infected tissue was removed in order to save her life.

"The primary surgeon who did the surgery said it’s one of the worst he’s ever seen," Nathan says. "He said he could almost see it spreading before his very eyes."

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, necrotizing fasciitis spreads quickly and kills the body’s soft tissue. It can be deadly in a very short amount of time, the agency says.

About one in four patients die from the infection, mostly due to a missed initial diagnosis, old age, diabetes and late presentation. To stop it, the CDC says its vital to get an accurate diagnosis, prompt antibiotic treatment and surgery.

Christin was left in critical, but stable condition. Nathan says he has seen pictures from the surgery but tries not to think about it. She'll have significant scarring. Explaining to their young children — ages 8, 6 and 2 — what their mom is going through isn't easy.

"They don’t know the extent ... exactly how bad she is," he says."We just tell them mom is very, very sick."

While the younger children don't ask too many questions — the 6-year-old copes by going to play — the oldest asks about their mom every single day, he says.

To date, she's had eight surgeries; some for minimal tissue removals, others for newly discovered infection areas.

On Monday, her surgery "went well" with minimal tissue needing to be removed, according to a GoFundMe post created to raise money for her treatments. Furthermore, her underlying muscle tissue appeared healthy.

"She continues to make further gains, albeit small but we'll take any good news we can get," the post said.

A ninth surgery is scheduled for Wednesday at Maricopa County Integrated Health Care hospital. The facility has a specialized burn unit trained to handle third-degree burns, similar to Christin's wounds. She has been kept sedated pretty much the entire time since her first surgery. She wakes up once in a while to squeeze the doctor's hand, but will have little or no memory of the experience, Nathan says, which is something that's hard for him to fathom — waking up weeks later.

Christin faces a long road ahead, with likely months of recovery time including physical therapy.

"We currently don't know how long it will take for Christin to fully recover but she will most likely be hospitalized for several months before she can be safely discharged assuming there are no further complications," the GoFundMe post says.

The crowdfunding website aims to raise $20,000, the amount the family estimates will not be covered by insurance. So far, they've raised more than $14,000.

Photo credit: GoFundMe