A Canadian woman nearly lost her legs to a blocked circulation after passing out at home after a night out with drunk girls.
Julia Anderson, 36, collapsed on her bed – kneeling on all fours – after having 20 drinks with friends at an Ontario bar in 2020.
When she woke up, her legs had doubled in size and she couldn’t move on her own, she needed help from her 70-year-old mother Sandra.
Mrs. Anderson, who is a mother herself, feared she had broken them while going out. She was diagnosed with compartment syndrome, a rare but deadly condition that occurs when blood doesn’t reach some of the body’s muscles and nerves.
The lack of blood circulation to her legs deprived the limbs of oxygen and other nourishment. Doctors said if they hadn’t acted sooner, she might have lost her limbs.
Ms Anderson said she usually weighs around 100 pounds, but her swollen legs added another 40 to 50 pounds to her petite frame
Julia said she was carrying 40 lbs – 50 lbs of excess fluid in her legs. She was hospitalized for a whopping five weeks where she underwent dialysis, a blood transfusion and a skin graft on her leg.
“They didn’t hurt, but they were twice their normal size, so I called out to my mum, who called an ambulance,” Ms Anderson said.
“When I arrived at the hospital, my whole body was very swollen. I’m short, I’m only 100 pounds, to them I looked like a 140 pound girl. I told them ‘guys, I don’t look like this, something is wrong’.’
Acute compartment syndrome occurs when pressure is placed on the lining of the body’s nerves and muscle tissue — called fascia — from bruising, bleeding, or another injury.
Fascia is not elastic and cannot expand to allow moisture to pass through. As a result, fluid begins to build up.
Ms Anderson’s case broke out early one morning in 2020 after she went to bed in the prostate position after a night out.
The woman had gone out with friends with whom she had been “drinking vodka all night” and “lots of liquor.”
Mrs Anderson said: ‘I was in constant pain. Imagine your leg falling asleep, but that tingling sensation is a thousand times greater, like a sharp shooting electric shock in my leg.’ The pain from the nerve damage was so severe that she “cried out in pain in the middle of the night”
Doctors had to perform a demanding procedure in a short period of time as the muscles deteriorated and toxins were released into her bloodstream, causing her body to swell and her kidneys to shut down.
She said, ‘We haven’t eaten. Pre drinks and bar drinks combined it was the equivalent of 20 drinks so quite a bit.
“I was more drunk than usual. When I got home I just thought, ‘go to bed Julia’ and passed out, curled up on top of my legs face down.’
The pressure on her legs while sleeping stopped her circulation and it took only hours for her body to develop compartment syndrome.
An ambulance took Mrs. Anderson rushed to Toronto’s Michael Garron Hospital, where doctors ran a barrage of tests and diagnosed her.
Ms Anderson said: ‘I was operated on immediately because my muscles were deteriorating and toxins were being released into my bloodstream, causing my body to swell and my kidneys to shut down.’
Surgeons performed a grueling procedure in which Julia’s left leg was cut open and muscles were cut to relieve the swelling and reduce the toxins released into her bloodstream.
She was in intensive care for two weeks, strapped to a device to drain excess fluid.
Ms Anderson also had to be hooked up to a kidney dialysis machine, to take a skin graft from her thigh and administer several blood transfusions.
This is because her hemoglobin levels, proteins in red blood cells that carry oxygen around the body, had dropped dangerously low.
She said, “The nerve damage was so bad that I cried out in the middle of the night in pain.
“I was in constant pain. Imagine your leg falling asleep, but that tingling sensation is a thousand times greater, like a sharp shooting electric shock in my leg.’
Her hospital stay lasted five weeks. She was bedridden at home for three weeks and dependent on heavy painkillers for a year.
After three years of being embarrassed by her harrowing experience, Ms. Anderson has gone public with her story in hopes of sparing someone else a similar experience.
She said, “I was embarrassed about it at the time because who’s to say, ‘I passed out like an idiot'”. The shame has kind of disappeared because it’s been years since it could happen to anyone.”