Christine Caron, a 49-year-old mother of four, who suffered a morbidly rare infection back in May is in the process of recovering. The infection that assailed her was a rare one, reported no more than two hundred times worldwide since 1976. It exacted a catastrophic toll on this woman, who happens to be a dog lover.

She has four dogs of her own. Three and a half months ago she was playing with her dogs. A game of tug-of-war with two of the dogs. During which event she experienced a small accidental nip from her three-year-old Shih Tzu. So slight, she thought nothing of it. The other three dogs, as dogs are wont to do, licked at the small wound.

And three days later, she subsided into a coma, one that lasted a month and a half in duration. A few days after she regained consciousness, doctors informed her that her condition was so dire it demanded amputation of her four limbs. Before that took place, however, some signs of life were detected in her right hand, and she was informed her right arm and hand would be spared amputation. The other three limbs, both her legs below the knee and her left arm at the elbow were taken, to spare her life.

It cannot be known which of her four dogs transmitted Capnocytophaga canimorsus to her, a bacterial contamination commonly found in dog saliva. A bacteria that rarely leads to infection in humans. Public Health Agency of Canada affirmed the rarity of the condition that afflicted Christine Caron.

Since that time of her surgery and her initial withdrawal from accepting the reality of her new condition, she has rallied enormously. She has been at the Ottawa Hospital's Rehabilitation Centre in downtown Ottawa since that time. Her recovery has her exposed to an hour daily devoted to learning how to walk on her prosthetic legs. Extremely fit-conscious before her personal tragedy, she now aspires to begin jogging again on special running prosthetics.

In the community where she lived, residents raised several thousand dollars to assist with her rehabilitation back into the community. A larger fundraising campaign named Caring for Chris on fundrazr.com has raised almost $80,000. Funding she plans to use in renovations to a new house that will accommodate her wheelchair.

Christine Caron, who lost three of her limbs following a dog bite in July, gets her new prosthetic limbs put on for exercises by her physiotherapist, Alison Davis, at the Ottawa Hospital’s Rehabilitation Centre Thursday. “I plan on dancing soon,” laughs the upbeat Caron.   Photograph by: JULIE OLIVER , OTTAWA CITIZEN

This dauntless woman kept photographs of her four dogs beside her bed at the Rehabilitation Centre. "A lot of people have asked me if I put my dogs down or am afraid of dogs now. I am not", she said, looking forward to reunification with her beloved companions.