A team of eight surgeons from the University of Utah Burn Unit performed six surgeries on Tanya Gludau over two months.

The 34-year-old South Lake Tahoe woman's condition, called necrotizing fasciitis, wasn't new to the surgeons.

Between January 2006 and Dec. 1, 2007, the Salt Lake City hospital saw 30 cases of the flesh-eating bacteria, records showed.

"Out of all the cases we've done, Tanya's had a lot of variables," said Dr. Amalia Cochran, assistant professor of surgery at the hospital and one of Gludau's surgeons. "It was difficult. When you're dealing with this articulation, where someone loses an arm or a leg, there is a complexity to getting the wound covered."

After severing the right arm at the shoulder, the surgeons performed a series of skin grafts using the fresh skin of a dead body, called "homografting," then used Gludau's own flesh taken from her thigh.

Gludau's body would have to accept the cadaver skin for her recovery to progress. And time wasn't necessarily on her side.

Once the cadaver skin took hold and cells began to grow, Gludau would undergo six weeks of therapy to strengthen her body and regain balance she lost from losing roughly seven pounds from the right side of her body.

"In retrospect, Tanya was someone who - from the time she got here until the time she left - (the treatment) was managed perfectly," Cochran said. "She has recovered as quickly as you can expect someone to recover from a disease like this. Not only from the physical consequences, but by the complexity of her own level of determination. She is a very determined lady."

But Gludau's grueling physical recovery presented only half the challenge. She also would have to mentally cope with losing a limb. Gludau, as with others whose bodies are disfigured, was expected to ride an emotional roller coaster. And she did, said Ann Cook, a licensed social worker for the University of Utah Burn Center who was assigned to work with Gludau.

"The questions Tanya had are those that she engaged with me," Cook explained. "They were questions people who have undergone something like this asks: 'Who am I now? Am I the same person? Will the man in my life want to be with me? Am I enough to be lovable with missing parts?' "

Gludau, though, had overcome adversity before, as she dealt with obesity issues much of her life. She slimmed down through surgery and rigorous exercise before she turned 30.

The weight she's gained during her recovery has been intentional: The layers of her skin and tissue will be stretched and pulled over the right side of her body, and her breast will be reconstructed.

"She's had this resiliency about her that sometimes we don't see right away with other patients," Cook said. "She took her own progress in life, overcoming obesity. She brought with her what she learned with that life experience and used it to bring herself back up."