Shara Helmstedt sustained nerve damage to her legs after contracting influenza B. Photo: Anthea Gleeson/The Chronicle
October 17, 2012 - 4:00AM
Queensland's influenza rates have soared to become the highest in Australia, with one Toowoomba mother left paralysed by an infection.
Shara Helmstedt, 31, is just one of 2023 Queenslanders who were diagnosed with influenza last month.
Victoria recorded the second largest number of cases last month (883).
Last year, Queensland had the third highest rate of influenza cases at 227.3 per 100,000 people but this year the state has the highest rate in the country with 354.9 cases per 100,000 people.
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Ms Helmstedt, a Zumba and fitness instructor with two young sons, contracted the flu two and a half weeks ago.
Two days after first catching it, she thought to herself "geez this has really knocked me around".
Two days after that, she was in hospital unable to move or feel her legs.
The nerves in Ms Helmstedt's legs had been damaged by a strain of influenza B and she has spent the past two weeks regaining feeling in her legs, which are now at 75 per cent movement.
"I was really scared because I have two young boys so I was just thinking 'oh no, this cannot be happening'," she said.
"It was really scary because they like to play footy and wrestle and everything and that's what I like to do with them.
"I knew I can't dwell on it, I've got to keep moving forward and I'll beat it and I will."
Ms Helmstedt had driven herself to the doctor at 20 km/h when she could only drag her legs behind her. Her eight-year-old son PJ helped her struggle in to the clinic.
She was hospitalised immediately.
"He's [PJ] a trooper, he's done it before," she said.
"I didn't realise I was pregnant a few years ago and I fainted and hit my head and was unconscious and he called triple-0 so he's my little guardian angel."
Ms Helmstedt is hoping to get out of hospital next week but is waiting for a Brisbane neurologist to visit Saint Vincent's Hospital in Toowoomba to carry out tests on how damaged her nerves are.
Until then doctors do not know if she will ever recover full use of her legs.
"I'm very fit and active and always out there and it knocked me for six," she said.
"[My family] were scared at first but they know I'm pretty strong and I'll get through it."
Ms Helmstedt said she had no idea "at all" a flu could cause so much damage and thought flu shots were for "old people".
"I'll be getting them from now on," she said.
"When the kids have a sniffle I take them to the doctor, now I'll be going to the doctor as soon as I have a sniffle too." http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/mother-paralysed-as-flu-rates-soar-20121016-27ot2.html
