Influencer Abandoned By Boyfriend After Double Amputation And Then Finds Love Again

An influencer who was abandoned by her boyfriend after losing both feet has found love again after years of wondering if she would ever meet the right person.

Leticia Fabbri, 32, from Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city, lost both feet and her hearing after suffering severe complications from bacterial pneumonia.

Leticia had been diagnosed in childhood with immune thrombocytopenic purpura, known as ITP, a rare autoimmune bleeding disorder that also affected her father and brother.

Her father died from bacterial pneumonia caused by the same bacteria a year before Leticia was left fighting for her own life in 2017.

Leticia, then 24, was intubated twice after developing pneumonia and spent two months in a coma as doctors battled to save her.

When she woke up, she could not hear, had severely reduced low vision and both her feet were bandaged.

Leticia said: “When I woke up from the intubation, I couldn’t see, I couldn’t hear and both my feet were bandaged.

“The surgeon came to visit me in the room and made a sawing motion on my leg. At that moment, I suspected the amputation would be necessary.”

She said she cried because she was frightened about how she would live, work, afford prosthetics and continue helping her family.

But the day she was discharged from hospital brought another blow when she called her boyfriend of nearly three years to tell him she was coming home.

Leticia said: “On the day I was discharged from hospital, I called my boyfriend to tell him I was coming home and he broke up with me over the phone.”

She was still grieving for her father and said the loss of her feet badly damaged her confidence.

Leticia said: “It was a shock for me. I think I started to believe no man would want to be in a relationship with me because I had a different body.”

She began making videos on social media to show friends and relatives how her rehabilitation was progressing.

Leticia also launched a fundraising campaign to buy prosthetics and gradually built a following by sharing her daily life and funny sketches about her story.

She now has more than 800,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram.

But even after rebuilding her confidence, Leticia said it took seven years before she believed she could be in a relationship again.

She said: “I had to deal with that inside myself and understand that each person thinks differently.

“I think I became so individualistic, in the sense of knowing what was good for me and putting myself first, that it was very difficult to end up liking someone.”

That changed last year when Fernando Conhasca, 26, saw Leticia on a friend’s Instagram page and began following her.

The pair began talking online on a night when Leticia’s brother, who also has ITP, had been taken into hospital.

Leticia said: “I told Nando to go to sleep because it was late, but he insisted on spending the night keeping me company. Then we ended up talking all night.”

Fernando’s support helped Leticia believe she could give love another chance.

She said: “I was very touched. After about five days of talking, he said, ‘Look, I’m going to buy a ticket to go to Sao Paulo to see you.’ I thought he was crazy.”

Fernando waited for his university exams to finish and travelled to meet her two weeks later.

Leticia said: “He came to Sao Paulo already with a ring and everything.”

She admitted she wondered whether the relationship was moving too quickly, but said Fernando showed himself to be caring and attentive.

Leticia said she often spoke to him about her insecurities over her amputations and how his family would react.

Fernando responded by asking his relatives to add her on Instagram to show their support.

Leticia later shared another gesture from his family after his mother prepared an adapted shower chair for her first visit to their home.

She wrote: “She surprised me with that care. Having a shower chair waiting for me at his house is not just about accessibility, it is about making me feel at home.”

Leticia said life after amputation has not been a simple story of putting on prosthetics and moving on.

She said: “I don’t like being hypocritical, you know? Saying it is a bed of roses and you just put on a prosthetic and you can do everything. It is not like that.”

Leticia said she once compared herself with Paralympic athletes who could run on prosthetics while she was still struggling.

But she later understood that each body adapts at its own pace.

She said: “Today I can do everything I admired in other people.”

Leticia also recalled making her first solo international trip to Buenos Aires in 2024, which she described as a moment of freedom and empowerment.

But she said one day of the trip had to be cancelled because her leg hurt so badly that she could not leave the hotel.

Leticia said she filmed herself crying on Instagram because she wanted followers to see the difficult days as well as the progress.

She said: “I understand it is not my fault, it is my body, and that is okay. There will be days when we will not be able to do something and we will feel frustrated, defeated.

“But that does not mean we are losers or anything like that. These are common feelings because we are human.”

(Aloysius Fernades/Newsflash)