GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — As doctors scramble to figure out how a suburban Atlanta mother and wife contracted a dangerous, life-threatening flesh-eating bacteria, the police officer husband has been forced to take a leave of absence to take care of the children.
Cyndy Martinez’s husband told the local media that the malicious medical malady began as just “a small pain in her shoulder,” WSB-TV reported. But that pain has quickly degenerated into a condition that may cost the woman her her hands and feet.
Doctors don’t know how Martinez, 34, got the dangerous bacteria yet and that has the family scared and the populace on alert.
Martinez is at Gwinnett County Medical Center wondering if doctors will have to surgically remove her hands and feet.
“I love her more than ever before,” said husband David Martinez told the station. For the past two weeks, the Gwinnett County police officer has been by his wife’s side.
The bacteria is eating away at his wife’s extremities to the point where doctors had to surgically remove dead muscle and tissue from his wife.
“We have two children together. Our son is 5 and our daughter is 2 years old. We’ve been married for 13 years,” Martinez said about his marriage that began when they met in their 20s
Martinez had to take a leave of absence from the Gwinnett County Police Department to take care of the family while his wife battles for her life.
“I still have two small children who need their dad, you know? We still have normal days of life, bills and work, we have to get done,” Martinez said.
Doctors say the flesh-eating bacteria, called necrotizing fasciitis, comes from some kind of open wound.
“That seems to be the mystery at this point. We don’t know. She didn’t have any injury, and initially at home when she was feeling the pain, I looked at where the pain was at and I didn’t notice anything and that’s what’s troubling. I don’t know,” Martinez said.
The family has set up a GoFundMe page to help defray the exorbitant costs associated with treating this rare malignancy.
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