A mum has been warned she may lose both of her legs as a result of an insect bite she suffered 13 years earlier.
Jorja Austin, 40, developed a rare skin condition after she was bitten by a gnat on her right leg while mowing the lawn.
Doctors now say she may need to have both legs amputated after suffering a life-threatening bout of sepsis.
The former admin assistant was bitten in 2009 while cutting the grass at her home in Basildon, Essex.
The bite never healed and two years later Jorja was diagnosed with pyoderma gangrenosum, which is a rare skin condition that causes excruciating ulcers.
Jorja said: "I've been in agony for 13 years. At one point I could see my leg tendons.
"There's a risk that my legs will have to be amputated.
"But the doctors have said that the sepsis may heal so I might be able to get plastic surgery instead.
"I'm just hoping the wounds will get better. Fingers crossed it will all turn around."
Jorja has spent three weeks at Basildon Hospital after being rushed there with sepsis and falling into a coma for 12 days.
Doctors are now keeping dressings on her lower legs, which are almost redraw from painful ulcers.
Jorja said when she was bitten it was like like tiny "pinholes" that started to get "bigger and bigger.
Recalling the insect bite that happened in 2009, she said: "I was in the garden cutting the grass and I literally had four tiny bites on my leg, just like pinholes.
"One bite never healed up. When I went to the doctors they said it was fine but it just got bigger and bigger.
"I was diagnosed with pyoderma gangrenosum two years later. I was just one of those unlucky people."
Jorja has two children aged 12 and 16, who were put into social care as their mother's health began to fail and authorities ruled her health meant she could not care for them.
Her sister Paige Austin, who has supported her, said: "She is the strongest person we know and has been the rock in our family.
"She's still going strong but no one should be like this at the age of 40."
