A role model, too. Lauren Wasser, the model who lost her leg from toxic shock syndrome in 2012, spoke out in detail about her traumatic journey and current reality on the Today show on Friday, July 17.
Wasser was a 24-year-old model living out her dream in L.A. when she woke up one day in October 2012 with flu-like symptoms. "I believe I was in the ICU. I was 200 pounds," she told the Today show. "My right leg was really bad. They both were on fire. I mean I can't even describe to you the pain."
The situation was so bleak that her mother started funeral preparations for her daughter. An infectious disease specialist later determined that she had toxic shock syndrome.
"This product? A tampon?" Wasser said on Friday. "Changed my life forever. I can never be normal again." Doctors amputated her right leg below the knee, after her legs started to mummify. Wasser recalled to Vice in vivid detail last month that she had to sign the papers to give doctors the go-ahead to amputate. "I had to act quickly," she recalled to the mag.
In her interview with Vice, Wasser described the deep depression she felt after leaving the hospital. "I wanted to kill myself when I got home," she recalled. "I was this girl—and then all of a sudden I don't have a leg, I'm in a wheelchair, I have half a foot, I can't even walk to the bathroom. I'm in a bed, I can't move, and I felt like those four walls were my prison… It f–ks with you. You live your whole life and think, 'I'm an athlete,' or, 'I'm a pretty girl,' but this was something physical that I had no control over. It took me a while to figure out if I was still worthy, if I was still pretty."
She is suing Kotex, the company that manufactured the tampon that triggered her TSS. Wasser said she can't stand to watch tampon commercials, nor will she ever use one again.
Now, she's appearing before Congress this fall to help pass the Robin Danielson Act, which is to look into the risks of chemically processed feminine hygiene products.
Despite the harrowing ordeal, the 27-year-old has today come to grips with her present reality. "I'm more beautiful than I've ever been," Wasser told the Today show on Friday. "Because I've experienced so many different things, and I can relate to so many different people. You know, it's just made me a better person…"
She is also modeling again. "We have amputees who are writing us and saying, 'Thank you for showing yourself in shorts.'"
