Tamara Owsley-Savard, 32, was nipped by a brown recluse spider after she ran into a web while camping with her family.
Ms Owsley-Savardnoticed that her left forearm began to swell two days after the bite but thought it would eventually heal.
But her condition worsened on June 7 – ten days after she was bitten at Perry Lake, Kansas – and her arm began grow in size, swelling one inch every hour.
The mum, of Topeka, Kansas was rushed to the ER at St Francis Hospital where she spent three days before being transferred to Kansas University Medical Center in Kansas City.
Doctors diagnosed the 33-year-old with necrotising fasciitis, a flesh eating bacterial infection which was already ravishing the tissues and muscles the left side of her body.
Ms Owsley-Savard, a supervisor, spent 16 days in the hospital’s ICU as she underwent twelve surgeries to try to contain the deadly infection.
Surgeons were forced to remove the pectoral muscle on her arm which means she will never be able to lift it above her head.
The mother also underwent three skin graft surgeries on her arm, chest and back after doctors were forced to cut away infected tissue.
Ms Owsley-Savard said: “It was Memorial Day weekend and we were camping at Perry Lake.
“I was playing hide and go seek with my kids when I ran into the biggest spider web I had ever seen in my life.
“It covered my whole body.
“One of them bite me on the forearm, and it hurt but not more than if you had been bitten by a fly or a mosquito.
“It wasn’t very painful but my arm began to swell on the second day.
“I was stubborn and I thought it would get better with time.
“But by the next week my arm was swelling and swelling, about an inch per hour. I knew I had to go to the doctor.
“They decided they didn’t have the expertise to treat me in St Francis and I was transferred to KU Medical Center on June 11.
“I was really scared because they told me I could lose my arm. The doctors finally told me what I had – a freaking flesh eating bug which had spread to my chest too.”
Ms Owsley-Savard said her family, including her technician husband David Savard, 30, feared she wouldn’t pull through.
She said: “My family thought I was going to die.
“My mum flew in from Oregon and my brother flew from California. They were told how seriously ill I was.
“My husband thought I was going to die and leave behind four children.”
Ms Owsley-Savard spent 41 days in KU Medical Center before she was discharged on July 18.
The mother fears she will not be able to return to her job as a supervisor as doctors were forced to remove her pectoral muscle in her left arm.
Ms Owsley-Savardsaid: “I’ve been left permanently disabled as they were forced to take my pectoral muscle which helps you lift.
“I have a two year old that I will struggle to pick up after this.
“My body is covered in skin grafts but I haven’t looked at myself in the mirror yet.”
Ms Owsley-Savard said she will never go camping again and was shocked that a bite from a common spider has changed her life so dramatically.
“I would have never thought a spider would be capable of this s**t.
“It’s freaking insane.
“If your arm starts swelling don’t do what I did and be stubborn and get yourself to a hospital.”