Broken Arrow mother of 5, cancer survivor nearly killed from sepsis diagnosis

A Broken Arrow woman is out of the hospital after a flu diagnosis turned out to be sepsis.

Who is LaTessa Smith? 

LaTessa Smith has been a dancer and runner her whole life.

She was a featured dancer and choreographer for MC Hammer on the "U Can't Touch This" album and toured with him for several years.

She is a mother of five and creates TikTok dances with her family, which have gone viral. 

What happened to her?

The mother of five is a cancer survivor, and in 2016, she broke her neck and had to get surgery in 2019. It became infected a couple of years later, and she was treated.

But this year, she knew something was very wrong, and doctors initially thought it was the flu. It turned out to be severe sepsis—so bad that doctors thought the infection could have killed her.

“It spread, if you will," she said. "It was so much worse. These were their words: it was so much worse than we thought.”

After emergency surgery, LaTessa is now home recovering.

What's next for her?

LaTessa is home recovering after emergency surgery.

She'll have to be home for several months, but her daughter LaQuire Smith is working to be a nurse and is helping her so she can stay home.

LaTessa may have a long road ahead, but she says she plans on dancing again. 

“This time I'm going to be dancing for the Lord," LaTessa said. “There's a purpose for me being here, it's time for me to walk in that purpose.”

LaTessa says she lost her parents and brother all in a few months recently, and this is a very hard thing to go through without them.

Her family has started a fundraiser to help pay for medical bills. That fundraiser can be found here.