QLD Mum Ends Up In Wheelchair After Borrowing Friend’s Make-Up Brush To Conceal A Pimple

A Queensland mum has been left unable to walk after borrowing her friend’s make-up brush to conceal a pimple. Jo Gilchrist only wanted to cover an acne when she swiped the make-up brush across her face, never knowing that the simple act would force her to fight for her life.

The 27-year-old Warwick resident was told she contracted community-associated Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus or MRSA, an antibiotic-resistant form of staph, probably from the bristles of a make-up brush that she glided over a pimple on her face. The brush belonged to her friend, who wasn’t aware that her beauty tool would almost cost her best friend’s life.

Gilchrist was also unaware of the danger she was in when she borrowed the seemingly innocuous cosmetic tool. She started feeling slight ache in her back, which she thought was just due to bad posture. However, the pain got worse, and on Valentine’s Day, she was rushed to the hospital after suffering from intense pain.

“I rate the pain worse than childbirth,” the mum-of-one told Warwick Daily News. Her doctors couldn’t diagnose her condition at first, and she was in serious risk of dying from her as-yet unknown ailment. She started to lose sensation in her legs.

She was then airlifted to Princess Alexandra Hospital in Brisbane for emergency surgery. When she woke up, she was told that she contracted MRSA, which she believed came from the brush that she used on her broken skin. Her friend had staph infection on her face. The bacteria from the brush appeared to have travelled inside her body and attacked and damaged her spine, rendering her unable to move her lower body.

Her doctors said she would be confined to the wheelchair for the rest of her life, but Gilchrist is determined to prove them wrong. When they told her she could never walk again, Gilchrist said she was able to wiggle her toes. She also lost her control of her bowel or bladder and is now unable to feel sexual function. She will keep on fighting for her health. “If someone tells me I can’t do something, I keep going because just he look on their faces when I do it is worth it.”

For now, she is confined to the spinal ward of the Princess Alexandra Hospital for at least three months. Her 2-year-old son doesn’t like not having his mother home, though. “He hates it and I don’t see him very often because he is in Warwick,” Gilchrist confided, adding it’s heart-breaking to see her son struggling to understand why she can’t come home.