It took 10 months of surgeries and therapy sessions and thousands of hugs and tears, but a Pitt Meadows mom who lost both hands and feet to a potentially deadly disease is now well enough to return home for the holidays.
“Oh, it’s so good to be home,” Danielle Linfoot said. “I needed to be near the kids again… and be home before Christmas, that was my goal. I got it.”
Linfoot nearly died from a Streptococcus A infection. She survived but had to have her hands and feet amputated.
WATCH: Pitt Meadows mother loses hands and feet to strep infection
“I didn’t think I was ever going to get back,” she said. “You kind of get to that point when you’re in there for 10 months that it was never going to happen.”
Linfoot is now home, getting used to her robotic arm, which she used to decorate her Christmas tree.
Linfoot said she made it home in part because of John Black, a quadruple amputee she met at Vancouver’s G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre.
She says Black lifted her spirits and helped her work harder.
WATCH: Emotional meeting between strep infection survivors
“I don’t ever see him grumpy, I don’t ever see him complaining,” she said of Black. “If something goes wrong, he just keeps trying. He’s very persistent with stuff. He’s been very good for me.”
Black is struggling to find a place to live since he’s been told he’ll be discharged from G.F. Strong on Dec. 13.
“Those who are fortunate that can go home with family members, that’s great for them. But those of us not so lucky in that way, we need a living place,” he said.
Black has been told he may be moved to a hospital in B.C.’s Interior, away from family and friends in Metro Vancouver.
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“Ideally, I would like to see him here in a place that he needs,” Linfoot said. “He’s alone and now he’s on… disability.”
Black’s sister has set up an online fundraiser in the hopes of raising enough money to help support him. Black says he hopes he can stay in Metro Vancouver “and finish off my physio.”
Linfoot and her family say they’re extremely grateful for all the public support they have received. She’s hoping the new year will hold new promise for herself and the man who helped her through an incredibly challenging time in her life.
“I needed this Christmas to be a good Christmas, and we’ll start off 2018 and hopefully, it’s better,” she said.
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