Survivor’s next big step is saying I do

By Kelly Yates
A CRANBOURNE woman who lost both her legs and six fingertips after contracting meningococcal disease nine years ago is getting ready to walk down the aisle.
Rachel Smullen, 27, will marry Mark Christie, her partner of six years, in a garden wedding this weekend in the Frankston Botanic Gardens.
To add to the excitement, Ms Smullen is expecting and is 18 weeks pregnant.
Ms Smullen says she and her soon-to-be husband will deal with the challenges of combining parenthood with her disability as they arise.
“We said 2008 would be a big one, but we had no idea it would be this big.”
Ms Smullen was 18 when she contracted meningococcal disease and spent five months in and out of hospital and rehabilitation.
“A percentage of people carry meningococcal in their nasal cavities. It’s like cancer and it just takes something to trigger it,” she said.
“At the time I had just started a full-time job and thought I was coming down with the flu.”
Ms Smullen was admitted to Dandenong hospital, unconscious, and spent two-and-a-half weeks in an induced coma.
Doctors said she only had a 25 per cent chance of surviving.
The news shocked the Smullen family.
“We just took things as they came and had to deal with them,” she said.
There wasn’t as much public awareness of meningococcal back then and looking back, Ms Smullen said if they had known all of the symptoms the outcome may have been different.
“But I’m so lucky to still be here,” she said.
Ms Smullen lost six of her fingertips and both legs from below the knee and now wears prosthetics on her legs.
“When I woke from the coma my feet and fingertips were black and it looked like I had frostbite,” she said.
“It was then that I made the decision to have my legs and fingertips removed.”
Ms Smullen said at the age of 18 it was a hard choice to make.
“I asked myself, do I take the chance and have the surgery even though it may kill me?”
The operations were painful but she said she had to learn the difference between pain and pressure.
“The hardest thing was learning how to walk with a prosthetic. It’s like wearing a new pair of shoes, you have to make them comfortable for you,” Ms Smullen said.
“It was those things I had taken for granted that I struggled with. I couldn’t even go to the toilet by myself. I had to learn how to eat with a knife and fork again,” she said.
“It was degrading but you just do it.”
Ms Smullen has no regrets about the operations and is thankful she is still here to tell her story.
A volunteer for the CFA, she also does motivational speaking at schools and says if she can help someone then she knows it has all been worthwhile.
“Having the operation saved my life, if I didn’t have it, the disease would have eventually killed me,” she said.
Ms Smullen is nervously waiting for her big day.
“I don’t want to be a bridezilla so Mark has helped me ease the pressure,” she said.
“We have organised everything together, well all except for my dress, he hasn’t seen that.”
The pair has invited 113 of their closest family and friends to the wedding.