An Oklahoma woman’s attempt at a mommy makeover turned life-threatening after doctors ignored her complaints of pain. Jamie Hilburn was working as a hairstylist in 2011, while she was approaching her golden birthday. She would turn 28 on March 28 of that year.
A single mother at the time, Jamie decided it was time to treat herself, so she scheduled a tummy tuck and liposuction to celebrate her birthday.
"You just know," Jamie said about trusting your own body.
“I wanted to do something for me,” Jamie told Insider. But her attempt at self-care went wrong.
Now, over a decade later, Jamie, now 39, is sharing her story to encourage others to advocate for themselves when they sense something is not right.
“You know when something is wrong with your own body," she said. "You just know."
Jamie's first symptom was tenderness.
Jamie’s procedures, which generally take two to four hours, went well. It wasn’t until her recovery period that she noticed something was amiss. Her left side was becoming more and more tender to the touch and her skin looked as if she had been sunburned. She called her surgeon to report the new developments. He assured her they were a normal part of the journey. He advised Jamie to “toughen up.”
By that evening, Jamie’s pain had increased so much that she slept on the arm of her couch to apply pressure to the wound. She said, it was “the only way I could get any comfort. I remember it so vividly and I'm like, 'This is just not right.'"
Jamie listened to her body. The next day, she took herself to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with cellulitis, a bacterial skin infection. Doctors gave her pain medication and sleeping aids.
Antibiotics are typically used to treat cellulitis. But Jamie does not remember being prescribed any. Her pharmacy’s records don’t go back far enough to confirm or deny whether she’d received the prescription.
"Listen pal…" Jamie's grandmother stepped in to advocate for her granddaughter.
Over the next few days, Jamie’s pain grew. Thankfully, her grandmother was there helping her heal. She intervened and called the surgeon one more time. “Listen pal,” Jamie said, recalling her grandmother’s conversation. “This is not 'toughen-up recovery.' There's something wrong. She's in a lot of pain."
The surgeon arranged for a colleague to get Jamie admitted to the ER of another, larger hospital.
Her memories of this hospital stay are spotty. She does remember they kept her sedated as they inserted IVs and a drainage bag. Eventually, an infectious disease specialist told Jamie that she had contracted a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus infection, more commonly called MRSA. The infection was caused by a staph bacteria, but was resistant to antibiotics most often used for typical staph infections.
Dr. Joe Hadeed, chair of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons' Public Education Committee, who was not involved in Jamie’s original surgery, told Insider, that Jamie’s MRSA infection likely caused the cellulitis.
Left untreated, MRSA can be fatal.
MRSA infections are a risk, particularly when health professionals aren’t strict about washing their hands or tools are not properly sterilized in between patients, according to the Mayo Clinic. If a MRSA infection spreads to the lungs, heart, or bloodstream, it can be fatal. Jamie said while she was warned of the risk of infection from her procedure, she didn’t think it was something she’d have to worry about.
"It's just something you'd never in a million years think would happen over a silly, vain procedure," she said.
Once doctors were able to land on a proper diagnosis and she received the right antibiotics, Jamie was still in for a long recovery. She spent 10 days in the hospital and 43 days at home with IVs and drainage bags. The surgeon reimbursed Jamie for the procedure and paid her home health care costs.
But she was still left with $125,000 worth of medical bills. Her insurance company denied coverage for the treatment of the infection because it was the result of a cosmetic procedure. She filed for bankruptcy.
These days, Jamie loves what she has.
Today, she still has scar tissue on the right side of her body, where her drainage bags once were. With the help of a therapist who helped her to unpack her experience, Jamie says she understands why she sought out the surgery in the first place.
“I wanted to get the surgery for obvious reasons — for appearance, for insecurities, but I just don't care anymore," she said. "It's made me love what I have without needing anything more."
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