Stacy was diagnosed with a rare condition that resulted in both her legs being amputated.
Last year, she started her modeling career a few months after her second amputation. Now she wants to see more disabled people in the modeling business. A 30-year-old model from bridge of Allan, Stirlingshire, Scotland, now supports plans to change employment laws to give disabled models more rights.
The student, who is studying in the Department of molecular biology at the University of Glasgow, is the first Scot to sign up to a campaign that wants the government to force institutions to submit one model of a disabled person for every five workable models.
Stacy Paris: “According to the latest data, one in six people in the UK has a disability, but where are the models with disabilities? When I started out, I didn’t have anyone to help me.”
At the moment, Paris has worked with companies all over her hometown, but she has ambitions to work on a broader stage. But, ironically, she would never have been in front of a camera if she hadn’t gone through surgery after Contracting a dangerous bacterial infection.
Seven years ago, a girl was on vacation in the South of France when she developed pain in her leg. She was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis and had to have both legs amputated because the disease had destroyed her bones. She says “the Disease got worse and worse, so I had to give up and go to the hospital. The doctors thought it was some kind of infection. I went through a lot of tests and x-rays, only to discover that the bones in my leg were almost completely destroyed. No one could explain it, because there was no wound.”
Stacy learned to walk after her first amputation in June 2012, but still maintained a positive Outlook on life. Then in August 2014, the second amputation occurred.
Bacteria are often spread through direct contact with the mucus of an infected person and through contact with infected skin wounds and ulcers.
Invasion by group a streptococci is a disease that can occur when bacteria gets past the body’s defenses. It is very serious, and sometimes life-threatening, when bacteria invade parts of the body such as the blood, deep muscles and adipose tissue or the lungs.
Two of the most severe forms of invasion by group A streptococci are called necrotizing fasciitis (infection of muscle and adipose tissue) and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (a rapidly progressive infection that causes damage to the main organs).
Early signs and symptoms of fasciitis include fever, severe pain, swelling and redness at the wound site. Early symptoms of streptococcal toxic shock syndrome include fever, dizziness, confusion, low blood pressure, rash and abdominal pain.
Stacy Paris is now free of this disease, but there is a chance that she may return. At the same time, the girl looks ahead with optimism and says: “I’m not worried about it. I am a positive person. I spoke to the mother of a girl who also had two legs amputated. She said that the little girl’s face just lit up when she saw my picture.
That’s why I do it. Young girls should see such people on the catwalks and TV screens. We don’t talk: “Give us all the work.” We talk: “Represent us and give us a chance.” I never planned to be a model, but now that I’m here, I’m ready to be a model to change the world.”
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