After undergoingtwo invasive spinal surgeries this summer,Selling Sunsetstar Amanza Smith is a survivor in the truest sense of the word.
The 46-year-old interior designer revealed to PEOPLE how osteomyelitis, a potentially rare and life-threateningbone infectionwas attacking her lower vertebrae. After a severe backache that lasted nearly a month caused her to collapse one evening at her Los Angeles home in May, Smith agreed to let a close friend take her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center five days later.
An MRI discovered that Smith hadvertebral osteomyelitis, a condition that is fatal fortwo out of 10 patients— and in her case it was dangerously advanced. “One or two more days at home and you could have been dead,” her doctor told her later.
“I thought I had a backache, and I almost died,” Smith tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue. “The doctors and my friend saved my life.”
It’s been a long, agonizing journey since those early days after her diagnosis. When Smitharrived at the hospitalon June 2, doctors put her on IV antibiotics, andshe underwent surgeryon her lower spine to “clear the infection from the bones,” Smith explains.
But it turned out the osteomyelitis, which can result from contamination during a medical procedure or an injection (in Smith’s case doctors couldn’t determine a cause) had also infected another area at the front of her spine.
The section looked too dangerous to operate on initially. “It was close to my aorta and my kidney,” Smith explains.
Amanza Smith’s scars from spine surgery in June. Photographed for People in July.Matt Sayles
Matt Sayles
Doctors hoped antibiotics would stop the infection, but her vertebrae continued to deteriorate. “The risk was the antibiotics wouldn’t penetrate the bone, and my entire back could collapse,” she adds.
Smith underwent asecond surgerylasting six hours, in which doctors inserted a titanium mesh cage in her back, with rods and screws keeping her spine together. “I am an iron woman, with rods and screws,” she jokes.
Smith’s scars soon after spinal surgery in June.Courtesy Amanza Smith
Courtesy Amanza Smith
X-ray image showing the titanium rods inserted in Smith’s spine.Courtesy Amanza Smith
“There are so many things I can’t do, because I can’t lift more than five pounds,” she explains. “Sometimes my purse is too heavy. You can’t speed up time, but I’m very anxious to be able to do the things that I love to do. I like to decorate. I like to rearrange. I want to be able to hang things, but I’m very limited right now.”
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Despite the challenges, her health scare has given her a new perspective.
Smith photographed for People in Santa Monica in July.Matt Sayles
“You know who your friends are when you become a burden,” she says. “Its like a rebirth. I will never take my mobility for granted again. When I can walk and jog again and do Pilates or ballet, I hope I stick to them because I plan on living to be 107.”
For more on Amanza Smith, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribehere.
source: people.com
