Marree Cowan used to walk 10 kilometres a day and go to the gym six times a week. That was before she contracted an infection after knee surgery at the Calvary Private Hospital in 2004 - an infection that left her disabled and, she claims, caused her to lose her business.
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A wheelchair and antibiotics are now an ongoing part of life.
In February, Ms Cowan settled her legal claim against the hospital on confidential terms, more than seven years after documents were first filed in the ACT Supreme Court and three months after the trial which will never yield a verdict was completed.
She is the third woman The Canberra Times has reported on this year to have an amputation after knee surgeries and long-term infections following treatment at hospitals run by the Little Company of Mary. Another case involved an elderly woman having an amputation above the knee soon after going to Calvary Private Hospital in 2011 for an elective hip replacement.
Ms Cowan's claim alleged that after a total right knee replacement, her knee became swollen and painful and continued to bleed for a number of days.
Documents state about five days after her surgery, while recovering in the hospital, the surgical wound opened up and a large amount of blood escaped.
A nurse attempted to stem the flow of blood or mop it up, wrapping the right knee with a mattress protector which was alleged to be soiled with faecal matter.
Ms Cowan claims this act caused an infection with a number of organisms, and led to three later surgeries on the right knee, the failure of an earlier back operation and prolonged and extreme pain and suffering, among a list of other physical and mental damages.
In its defence, Calvary Health Care ACT denied the incident occurred and disputed all allegations of negligence.
The wheelchair-bound Ms Cowan has been unable to work since 2004, the year her partner left his job to begin caring for her, and in 2010 made the choice to have her right leg amputated above the knee.
She says physical pain is a daily companion.
''The infection pain is like having 40 babies. The medication I've been on, and am still on, doesn't stop the pain - it helps but it doesn't take it away,'' she said.
''It hasn't been a life - it's just been a life of misery. You live with pain, you're down to the stage you can't walk. I was in a wheelchair, then when I lost the leg it was just the end of everything, really.''
A Calvary Private Hospital spokesman said privacy obligations prevented discussion of individual patients.
In a report prepared for Ms Cowan's lawyers and tended as evidence, Canberra Hospital's now senior specialist of infectious disease Professor Frank Bowden said he had no direct evidence - apart from the patient's claim - of the soiled mattress causing the right knee infection, but the presence of the three organisms was unusual. ''The presence of these three different organisms, all of which are found in the bowel, is unusual in a knee joint and is suggestive of a significant faecal contamination of the wound,'' Professor Bowden said.
Ms Cowan's lawyer, Nicholl & Co principal John Nicholl, said the matter was settled on ''mutually agreeable terms'' and it and hygiene-related legal cases were rare. ''It was an extremely unusual case, very rare and unfortunate circumstances - all people who go to hospital run the risk of infection,'' Mr Nicholl said.
Mr Nicholl - who has conducted medical negligence cases in Canberra for 20 years - said he had concern, however, about the work pressures in the hospital system.
''In 20 years in practice, it's my experience that the incidence of adverse outcomes at Canberra hospitals are increasing,'' he said.
The Canberra Times reported on Monday the cases of two elderly women who both required amputations after infections following knee replacements, with one replacement completed at Calvary Private Hospital and another at Calvary Public.
Newspapers had already reported the case of a separate 69-year-old woman who went to Calvary Private in early 2011 for an elective hip replacement, but soon had to have her leg amputated above the knee. The case was believed to be non-infection related.
