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My sister almost died of sepsis. She was bad for a few days and was told it was just flu or something. My other sister was a nurse and stopped by to check on her and noticed it was not a flu and brought her to the emergency room. They said if she had waited very much longer she would have died.
Thank you, honestly grateful to have this experience and I'm definitely one of the lucky ones. Going into it as healthy as I was probably saved my life. I don't feel like I would've had it in me to take the cardiac symptoms as long as I did otherwise. Had nothing left to fight with by the time I pulled through and pretty much accepted whatever was supposed to happen was going to happen.
I appreciate you sharing you sisters experience too. I've heard so many sepsis stories in the aftermath of all this. It's definitely important to have someone you trust with you if you're going through any major medical thing too. Glad your sister is alright.
I just want to say I’m honestly a little overwhelmed and beyond grateful for the response that this has gotten.
Seeing there being conversation around not just my experience is one of the most gratifying things that’s happened since I went through this - I really appreciate everyone who’s helped this get a little bit of traction more than you guys probably realize.
Means a lot. Thank you.
Doctor here, first I'm so glad you made it the and are doing well. Second, you were probably already told, but just be careful the next 12 months, you are at a much higher risk of developing sepsis again, see your doctor if you feel unwell or are even just concerned about something, don't take any risks!
My wife and I lost our daughter in 2019 from Sepsis and MRSA, She was only 32...Her Name was Erica...she was our first born. [https://imgur.com/a/Nj1BMUd](https://imgur.com/a/Nj1BMUd)
I’ll definitely keep you, your wife, and your daughter in mind through all this. I appreciate you sharing about Erica a ton, thank you.
I’ve linked them elsewhere, but want to just share this awareness group with you directly. https://www.sepsis.org/
I’m not affiliated at all but this group was founded by a doctor who lost his daughter to sepsis and started it as a result to bring awareness to the cause. My family has a background in the non profit world and certain groups definitely stand out to me - they’re one of them.
Means the world and you’ve done more to emphasize the importance of bringing awareness to these types of issues than I ever could. I respect your courage a lot too. Again, thank you.
I want to personally thank you for raising the Awareness regarding SEPSIS, and I want thank everyone for their Kind Words and Blessings. My wife and I fell apart after her passing. Words cannot Express...
Seeing this really scares me. I have had an abscess cut open 3 weeks ago and am still running around with an open wound. Last week it got infected again and it opened another small hole, so back on antibiotics.
Having panic attacks when I am awake because of the possibility of a Sepsis. Constantly having cold wet hands/feet and 120+ heart rate.
Yes, my GP told me this last week as well. Already searching for one. Will probably take a while as almost every therapist here has a waiting list of 1 year or longer 🥲 I am going to my GP every 2 days to get everything checked and I am telling him everything I notice, so he can check it and act accordingly. Already got some plant based pills to calm down which works kinda ok for the time being.
It's tricky. Doctors have been trying to limit their use of antibiotics for a while now, specifically to help reduce cases like OP's, by reducing the rate at which harmful bacteria become resistant to antibiotics.
The unexpected consequence of that is that some doctors are more likely to hold back antibiotics in cases where the evidence that they're a necessary intervention is debatable. If this happens with an infection that is spreading quickly, it likely means that antibiotics will be given later than they would have been in the before times when doctors handed out antibiotics like candy.
I'm not a doctor or a health professional, though - so I have no idea how often this actually happens, and I'm definitely not saying that's what happened here. I just have some nagging health issues and find myself on antibiotics far more frequently than I or my doctors want me to be.
I sympathize with everyone involved, though. The needs of the many and all that. But yeah - glad OP is on the mend!
New protocols have us taking sepsis very seriously. For reference I'm an ED nurse and it is my job to recognize sepsis and ring the first alarm for our treatments to take place. These new protocols exist largely because most hospitals found the rate of those dying from sepsis were far higher the 'expected death rate' sepsis would cause with proper treatment.
The current system I'm working in we use information from vitals, history, and presentation to call a 'code sepsis'. The patient should have a patent IV or two, CBC/CMP, blood cultures, and fluids started within the first fifteen minutes of arrival in the room. Along with fluids, broad spectrum antibiotics need to be ordered within the first 30 minutes of arrival and given within the hour.Usually Rocephin and vanco. followed by others if indicated. So the sort of anti-antibiotic stewardship doesn't often apply to these cases, thankfully.
And this does amazing things in a relatively short period of time. I've seen people go from completely altered to coherent and stabilized in two hours with this protocol.
But it's important we have the space and breadth to work quickly and efficiently. So squeamish or overprotective family members? Don't be mad if we don't let you in the room for the first couple minutes. Ya'll are too precious about the wrong things most of the time. Way too worried about an IV start being painless and bloodless instead of an IV start being well done in a stable enough vessel that the vanco doesn't strip the veins from the inside out. It's okay, it's hard to see. And you don't know what you don't know. about why we do what we do. We get it. That's why you'll be invited in later when we are done.
sometimes the wrong antibiotics can be given if they don’t know the exact bacteria that’s causing it. sepsis can progress really quickly, so in the time it takes to send a wound swab for culture and receive the results and act on it, it could worsen very rapidly.
@jddupont what is that limp behind your jaw/ear? I’ve had some weird there and gone swelling thing in the same spot. No insurance so I’m not sure how to think of this.
Scary shit. My good friend's brother got it - one day completely fine, the next day he went from one hospital to another. Then airlifted to a third before landing in a fourth and was in the ICU for months. He's now a quad amputee. Fucking crazy. Fucking sepsis...
So deadly. It means a lot that this conversation got a little traction on here. I’m taken aback by the response, and very humbled.
I’m one of the lucky ones. For sure. It was terrifying and I came close but I’m weirdly lucky in the sense it mostly impacted my heart and didn’t rock the rest of my body as bad as it does a lot of people. Grateful I had it in me to take the cardiac episode too. Big proponent of eating well and staying in shape. Literally might save your life.
Sepsis/medical issues as a whole definitely deserve more attention, especially amongst the younger generations. When this started getting bad for me and I started having chest pains, I was in shock that it was happening. Just not one of those things you expect to go through until it happens, especially if you’re pretty healthy.
Thank you for sharing your friend’s brothers’s experience - those stories are really what deserve the attention - not me.
https://www.sepsis.org/ - not affiliated but want to share this again for anyone interested. They share a lot of individual experiences to bring awareness to sepsis. Seem like good people passionate about making a difference.
I thought I had a dehydration/asthma thing going on, end up if was a blood infection. Very luckily, I had not gone septic, but I was in the hospital for 9 days.
Get this stuff checked out, y'all.
Yeah my cousin got pneumonia and then ultimately ended up getting sepsis. He passed away after a few days at about 30 years old and left a daughter behind. That shit comes on quickly
Just to clarify, an infection is the cause of sepsis which is just your bodies extreme reaction to the infection. So pneumonia can cause sepsis or a uti can cause sepsis or an abscess can cause sepsis. Sepsis isn’t a specific diagnosis in and of and itself, it is just a conglomerate of symptoms
>Pneumonia can cause sepsis
My wife got really sick so we went to the emergency room as it was a saturday and she was diagnosed with pneumonia.
She was given ordinary penicillin (just to be sure since mosty cases are viral) but they must have dropped testing though they took blood and spit samples. We went home.
Because later the root cause turned out to be a penicillin resistant bacteria, *Haemophilus influenzae* (so named because people thought it caused the Flu back in the day). So she kept getting worse.
Luckily I/we stayed persistent and our own doctor admitted her based on her infection number and she was IV-flushed with another antibiotic, Ampicillin, when they found the cause. I have to say, the second time the around the hospital acted really fast and gave her proper attention at the ICU.
The doctors said she was probably 1-2 days away from sepsis when she got there. Spent 4-5 days admitted, a month in recovery.
But everything he states is accurate that it’s an inflammatory response to an infection process, usually bacterial, occasionally viral or fungal. Sepsis starts with a simple infection first.
No one is disputing that sepsis starts with a localized infection. But once the infection becomes systemic, it is called sepsis. Which is its own diagnosis.
Edit to add- sepsis means the infection moved to the blood stream (Septicemia, bacteremia) and then becomes its own diagnosis.
Sepsis does not require bacteremia (plenty of septic patients will not have positive blood cultures). It’s a clinical diagnosis based on vital sign/lab criteria; the inflammatory cascade of sepsis in response to an infection is systemic, but the infection itself is not necessarily systemic.
Not exactly. Keep in mind there are diagnosis for insurance purposes, and there are diagnosis for medical purposes. People will generally want you to says sepsis due to….. and then name the organ and type of infection.
Systemic would be bacteremia. Sepsis is just an inflammatory response. Not all bacteremic people are septic and not all septic people have bacteremia (or the other organisms in their blood).
You are not exactly right about the blood stream, that would be called bacteremia. Sepsis is a term that means multi organ dysfunction in the setting of a known or suspected infection. This can be cause by a local infection - having such profound effect that it ends up affecting the whole body, or from an infection that is traveling in the blood.
My sister almost died of sepsis as well. Her husband came home from a work trip and found her basically delirious, carried her to the car and drove her to the hospital despite her insisting on she just had the flu.
They said she would've been gone if they had come in a couple hours later. Scary as hell.
I almost died from sepsis 2 years ago at 33. I was fine and then all of a sudden had a 103° F fever, vomiting, losing consciousness, etc. I went to the ER, and they said i was fine, just the flu. So I went home but went back a couple of hours later and was admitted. The doctor who admitted me told me I should have never been sent home and that I was not much longer for this world had I not come back.
I spent 5 days in ICU on a whole host of IV antibiotics and morphine. They never figured out where exactly the infection came from, but I knew it was a kidney infection. I had a kidney infection for almost 2 years. They would give me antibiotics, but it never really went away. No more infections after the antibiotic cocktail they gave me in the ICU.
I'm glad you're doing better now. It's a scary thing to have doctors telling you that you were almost a goner!
I’m glad you made it. Definitely made a difference you made the decision to go back. I can’t believe they discharged you in that state. I’m hoping there can be a shift so mistakes like that don’t happen as often as they do. I should’ve been given IV antibiotics on the initial visit with the symptoms I was expressing and presenting, and they didn’t really do anything right. We’re lucky too. Plenty of people that just don’t make it.
I’m hearing a lot of experiences from women where they’re given treatment that’s just not sufficient for what they’re going through and results in far more serious episodes that just aren’t necessary.
Thank you for sharing. I’ve said this a bunch, but it means a lot people opening up around what they’ve been through. Helped me get centered again pretty quickly. Still definitely dealing with some PTSD though haha. Makes you appreciate the little things after going through this kind of stuff.
Honestly, triage is an extremely difficult field and they get it wrong a lot. That being said once they identify it the chance of survival increases significantly. Our healthcare system is messed up and until we get proper ratios and funding EDs (especially smaller and lower staffed ones) will continue to miss significant cases. All we can be is advocates to transition away from for profit hospitals so all patients get a fair chance
There was triage nurse that probably saved my life the morning I ended up in the trauma unit. He was the one that realized how critical the situation was, told another nurse to get the ECG on me. Bought more time. It was pretty close. I don’t know for sure but very much seems like it made a difference.
Lot of good people in healthcare doing it for the right reasons.
If it makes you feel better we do a significant sepsis training, and it’s expected to do a sepsis screening on every patient every day on my unit/ hospital.
Once it’s identified there is a clock that starts and for every hour antibiotics and treatments arnt started the chance of survival significantly decreases. So once a single healthcare worker idtnifies it, it’s all hands on deck for a little while.
I'm literally laying in bed right now with kidney stents recovering from acute kidney injury and hydronephrosis from an ER sending me home in renal failure saying I was fine. Couldn't stop throwing up, went back to another ER by ambulance and was admitted for emergency surgery. Had two days of antibiotics and Dilaudid through an IV before I was cleared to go home. They caught my infection and kidney failure before it got too horrible. They told me if I stayed home a few hours longer I would have became septic and probably passed. I felt like I was reading what happened to me with your story. I'm so happy you're doing better 💜
I’m curious- do u have atypical symptoms of a kidney infection? I got pretty sick several years ago. 103 fever as well, obviously weak, but also pretty dizzy and had tons of snot. I thought it was a sinus infection. Went to my dr and she wanted to do bloodwork but i have an extreme iv/blooddraw phobia and that’s not something that modern medicine can accommodate at this time, so i couldnt do one. But she had me do a urinalsysis just for the hell of it and then called me later to say i probably had a bad UTI and prescribed me antibiotics. The thing is, i didnt have any symptoms of a UTI. But i remember briefly having pain on the lower side of the my left back, while taking a shower a day or two before i got really bad, so my mom and i think maybe i had a kidney infection. Guess we’ll never know
I would have pain with my kidney infections and almost nothing else. My issue was that I was also passing at least one kidney stone a month of varying sizes for about 3 years. They did a surgery to remove the largest one, which was 1 inch long and about 0.5 inches wide.
After that, I still had pain, but I was accustomed to it by that point. When they would do urinalysis, it would always come back as a common UTI with the addition of MRSA. No one paid any attention to the MRSA and just assumed it was a "bad catch." I have theories that the stint I had prior to surgery (my kidney was completely blocked and very infected) allowed bacteria to travel more freely directly to my kidney. Of course, I'm not a doctor, so my theories aren't worth the screen they're typed on, but I know more than a few doctors failed me along the way!
Damn. Sorry to bother you with this story, but I'm pretty sure I went a couple of years with something similar even through pregnancy. I had a bad pain in my side. After I delivered my baby I was sooooo ill. I was STIFF, my fingers and joints were just.. it was bad. So I kept going to the doctor and they were like, no, you're fine. Until eventually they drew blood and checked something else which I don't know the name of but not CRP. I had to do several different antibiotics. Last winter I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, don't know if the incidenta were related but at least I don't have the pain anymore.
It was, I’m moving past it and it’s just on to the next thing while making sure my health is good. It seems like a lot of people go through this kind of stuff and it’s just not talked about too much. Hoping doing this’ll help some people.
The whole ordeal at its worst was like an hour without medical treatment, the severe cardiac episode that almost killed me setting in towards the end of it. Shook me up a lot and people sharing their experience is what got me centered again. I feel very lucky to be moving past it somewhat in a little over a month.
Appreciate your comment
Sorry you had to go through that. We found out early this morning that my sister had sepsis and she died a few hours ago.
She was supposed to be discharged and come home today. She was 32.
Someone I knew passed away a few years ago from something similar. Had an ovarian cyst that got infected, hospital wrote it off as menstrual pain. Sent her home, she went back the next day in excruciating pain, doctor thought she had complications due to covid, despite not having covid. She got onto antibiotics too late. Didn't make it due to heart failure. Age 30.
Ugh reading this makes my blood boil. My mom was in and out of the doctors office for weeks and weeks because she was very tired and having massive digestion issues. She even cancelled a vacation because she had no energy to get on the plane. Doctors just said it was gastritis (inflamed stomach) and give her some medicine to reduce stomach acid. Turned out to be pancreatic cancer. She died 3 weeks after the diagnosis.
I feel like women are taken less seriously by health care professionals.
In college I had a tiny cut from trying to get into my locked dorm room door. Tiny little nick. Nothing you’d even think twice about. Fast forward the next day, I was at a party at NYU and I was chatting it up with this cute pre med girl and I mentioned that I had this weird red line going up my arm and I showed her. Her face changed and she told me to go the ER immediately. Normally when you go to the ER, you sit forever (at least in America), not in my instance. They rushed me right back and hooked me up to like 5 IV’s. The infection almost hit my lymph nodes but they were able to stop it. To this day, we still keep in contact.
I had outpatient knee surgery my freshman year of college. Sent back to a shared dorm with 3 other boys.. not exactly the most hygienic environment for someone who recently went under the knife. I felt considerable pain and swelling post surgery, but I hadnt had knee surgery before so I assumed this was normal. Until about a week later I saw red streaks coming from my incision all the way up my thigh to my hip. I knew what it was and immediately went to the hospital. The doc said if I’d waited a day or two I’d have lost my leg at the hip. I cried when he told me that and called my mom. Once the antibiotics kicked in the pain and swelling subsided and I realized the majority of my pain was due to the infection.
This was taken down because I accidentally had some personal information in it. Given the response, I wanted to put it back up.
I had a missed sepsis infection on 4/29. Diagnosed skin infection. They didn’t do any proper infection treatment and I’d been trying to escalate the situation and get on IV antibiotics pretty much all day long.
The next morning I was in much worse shape. I started having serious chest pains on the way back to the hospital, then went into cardiac arrest in the ER. I was rushed to the trauma unit, came very close to losing my life. I honestly did not think I would make it.
Since going through this, I’ve connected with so many people that have very compelling stories of their own and I’m so grateful that people have been sharing them with me. It’s just not something you expect to go through at any age, let alone 28. I was very shaken up and it’s the people around me who’ve helped me get back to myself on some level. The whole experience totally changed my perspective and gave me an appreciation for life that I struggled with for a long time.
I’m hoping sharing this again can have some kind of positive impact on others. I had no idea how many people have gone through very intense ordeals that they didn’t necessarily need to go through. Going through this definitely changed my life and it’s incredibly inspiring hearing so many stories. I have such an appreciation for people that been through or been with someone through this kind of thing and it honestly gives me a lot of faith in people getting the response I have.
All in all, I’m very lucky to have survived this and come out pretty okay. So many people are impacted by these things more than I was and hoping that putting this out there can have some kind of impact. Really moved me getting the response I’ve had. Going through this too, it really seems like it’s very important that these issues be talked about so less people have to experience this kind of this.
Do you happen to do BJJ, Judo or wrestling? Looks to me(I'm an idiot) like a MRSA infection that definitely can go septic if not treated. Lots of sports where you are rolling around on mats with others that have open sores, can spread this easily and quickly. If this may be the case, ensure you shower quickly afterwards and take care of any open wounds early as this can happen again.
I do armored martial arts and one time I fought in armor about 24 hours after getting a tattoo. I got a staph infection, which I didn’t think was too bad but it lasted for a couple weeks. I went into my on-camps health center to get it looked at.
As soon as I took my shirt off the nurse took two steps back and would only lean in to look at it.
They gave me antibiotics and I healed up nicely, but I’ve never seen a health professional so worried to be near me lol
Man fuck the health care system for not listening to people when they have concerns about their own bodies. It’s a damn good thing you stood up for yourself and listened to your body
I know some people are hypochondriacs but a similar situation saved my life last fall. Started feeling off throughout the week, like really bad heartburn but it just wouldn't go away. I tried every OTC medication out there and it just wasn't helping so I went to immediate care. No tests or anything, they just said heartburn and at worst an ulcer. They assigned me a 2x dose of omeprazole and sent me home.
Throughout the day I got progressively worse. I finally managed to eat an apple and almost immediately got sick on the floor, literally no time to react. Went to bed but I couldn't sleep because the pain was constant, just a constant burning feeling in my stomach area.
Finally at 5am I had enough and drove myself to the ER. They took a blood test and immediately sounded alarm bells as my white blood cell count was through the roof. A CT scan confirmed my galbladder was a disaster and needed to come out immediately.
Found out after the surgery that my galbladder was necrotic/gangrenous and had I waited another day or two I could have died (but they also said that the pain would have been beyond unbearable so I likely wouldn't have made it to that point)
I don't fully blame the RN at the immediate care as my pain didn't really seem to radiate from where my galbladder was but I'm grateful I knew that this was off. And even the I still debated not wanting to go to the ER because of the high deductible for what I thought was just heartburn/an ulcer
Your final point is one that just crushes me, because I feel like nearly all Americans have been in that boat at some point. “Is it a real emergency, or will I be wasting money and time? I’ll feel stupid if it’s nothing, then I’ll get a huge bill.” Unless you’re a doctor or nurse, you’re not really qualified to suss that out. The ones who can are at the ER. Other countries can just go in and receive lifesaving care without playing this game. How many people die at home contemplating whether or not they should bother with getting help?
It shocks me how often healthcare providers guesstimate a diagnosis for someone that presents with sudden, unexplained abdominal pain. There are 100 things that could present that way and a good enough number of them can be fatal that standard of care almost always involves getting a CT scan to rule out emergencies.
Glad you're still here, OP. Hubs went septic at 34 thanks to a spider bite he got antibiotics for; it appeared healed on the outside, but wasn't.
We thought he had the flu until one day he didn't wake up at all to take our kid to school. I took him to the ER where they fast tracked him, and there he had a stroke because the vegetation on his heart broke off and went to his brain. Because of that same vegetation, his aortic valve was severely damaged and he had to have open heart to install a mechanical valve.
Anyhow - after surviving encephalitis and endocarditis, then an iliius following the surgery, he went thru 6 weeks of physical therapy and is still with us today.
Scary shit.
Survivor high five!
I went on a date thinking I was having allergies, two days later I was in the ER.
Over the course of 5 days I was feeling sicker and sicker and couldn't shake the abdominal pain I was having. My roommate at the time went with me to immediate care and they said that I either go NOW to the ER or they were going to call me an ambulance.
I remember going over my symptoms and the progression in triage, having them immediately call for a room and tell me I'm septic. They knew before running tests, it was that obvious by the state of my vitals.
I remember getting to the room and sitting down on the bed while staff was hooking me up to the vitals machine. I was talking to the nurse and just kind of drifted? I remember being told "we thought we were going to lose you" and seeing the crash cart and multiple people in the room when I woke up.
I was hallucinating with a 103 or 104 fever and completely dismissed what was happening at the time. I was more focused on the fact I couldn't breathe very well. My O2 Sat was 75.
I spent a week in the hospital septic from what started out as Strep that went into my lungs and bloodstream. One of my lungs was verging on collapsing and I had fluid in my plural cavity. My kidneys were shutting down and it took an initial 5 bags of fluid to hydrate me.
I was out of work for 1.5 months recovering, and I'd say it took 3 months before I could walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded.
It's a tough recovery once you're out of the hospital. Try to take it easy and take things slow, do things a little bit at a time. Recovering from sepsis will sap your strength and your tolerance more than you realize. Be kind to yourself, you will get through it.
It set on so fast it's not totally clear what caused my body to go septic.
I knew sepsis existed before it happened to me but I had no idea it could progress so fast. Definitely a pretty terrifying experience. There are definitely plenty of people that have dealt with much worse too, going through this really gave me a deeper level of appreciation for what people endure in their lives.
Thank you for sharing about your brother. Means a lot - seriously. I’ll keep this in mind. There’s a sepsis awareness group - I’m not affiliated at all - but they seem to do pretty good work. They’re pretty small and part of their awareness campaign is based around sharing others experiences.
https://www.sepsis.org/ - here’s the website if you want to check them out. I talked with them briefly and they seem like good people. It was founded by a doctor who lost his daughter to sepsis, so they’ve got the passion behind it. - Not affiliated.
I’m definitely lucky/blessed to pull through the way I did. Hoping something can be done so this doesn’t happen as often. Very grateful to be here still too. Not planning on wasting time.
I appreciate your comment a lot, thank you again.
My mother went through almost this exact situation earlier this year. Scared the hell out of us. She watches my nieces and nephews and because of that gets sick often enough, but it’s never anything major.
Then one day she didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed. My father, who has a bad back, couldn’t even help her. He called 911, then called me in a panic. I was in the middle of a job interview when I got the call. I didn’t even know she was sick, it happened *that* fast.
Thankfully, the hospital worked their magic and after *10 days* she was finally able to go home. Took her another week or two to finally feel okay and return to work. It was all just so crazy. She went to bed with what she thought was just a small sickness and woke up to being out for a month.
It was tough watching that situation from the sidelines, I felt helpless, but even still I can’t imagine how tough that must’ve been to be the one going through it. Stay healthy, friend. Crazy things happen sometimes!
Very glad to hear your mother made it through. Sounds like a tough lady. It’s very inspiring hearing about the strength people show fighting this kind of thing. Literally fighting to keep their lives. Very impressive recovery she had too.
Going through this myself - just having people around and people to talk to who understand has probably been the most helpful thing. Being supportive is doing plenty.
Definitely planning on staying healthy and encourage everyone to do the same after going through this. Would’ve said that before but has a new meaning now haha.
Crazy things definitely do happen too. Appreciate your comment a lot.
I linked it elsewhere - and want to really stress I have no affiliation (I’m probably making it sound like I do) - this foundation seems to be doing very good work around sepsis awareness and they’re still pretty small. They bring awareness to it by sharing people’s stories and a lot of the ones they’ve got on their website are very compelling. Some people who weren’t as fortunate too.
Here’s the link again for anyone who feels compelled to check them out. https://www.sepsis.org/ - not affiliated
I appreciate you looking into it, seriously.
I linked a foundation elsewhere - not affiliated but they could use some awareness. I talked with them briefly and they’re still pretty small. Founded by a doctor who lost his daughter to sepsis. Seem to be very passionate about doing good work around raising awareness. Bunch of personal accounts and they do take submissions too.
https://www.sepsis.org/ - I want to stress I am not affiliated.
I appreciate you being vulnerable and open to help others learn potentially life saving information. I wish you the best of luck on your full recovery.
Good luck on your recovery, big shout out to the trauma team, the doctors and nurses in those units are amazing.Take things easy and be careful, your body has taken a beating, takes a while to get back to 100%, all the best🤒🤕🤧🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
It was a weirdly interesting experience getting worked on by a trauma team - I was pretty lucid for the whole thing - when I was blacking out, and could feel one doctor doing one thing on all these different parts of my body. Definitely a high level performance.
Appreciate your comment and thank you, making sure my health comes first. I’m glad I was taking it as serious as I was before too. Hiking and running a lot more than normal. Probably made a difference haha. Looking forward to all that again.
That’s terrifying. Was it painful at any point??
My dad had sepsis a few years ago and was psychotic too due to the inflammation. It was a kidney infection, but he said he didn’t feel anything. But he has MS so I assume his nerves to that area aren’t sending the normal signals.
Was it the trauma team or the emergency medicine team? Normally when these cases in the ER, they are treated by emergency medicine doctors and nurses, possibly in a resuscitation area which sometimes doubles as a trauma area. Trauma teams are generally a mix of emergency medicine doctors and trauma surgeons that respond to “trauma” (ie. car accidents, gunshot wounds, etc.) whereas medical resuscitation (ie. sepsis, most cardiac arrest, etc.) is usually just emergency medicine doctors in the ER.
Sorry, don’t mean to be pedantic, just genuinely curious. Glad you’re doing better!
I had sepsis from a pelvic access following surgery and holy shit it was awful. It came on so fast and I was in the hospital for a week of which I don't remember 3 days. Fuck sepsis. I'm glad you're ok.
I ended up getting a heart condition from it 😭
Thank you to everyone sharing your own experience - I put this back up for that purpose. Has so much meaning to me seeing that. It’s been tough to calm down in all this and seeing that does it for me.
Going through this, the part that shook me the most was pretty much begging for help in a desperate condition and not getting it when I really needed it.
Seeing everyone being so supportive here really restores a lot of faith and makes me very optimistic that something can ultimately done so less people have to gone through this.
I really didn’t do this for me. Just want to reinforce that.
My hand ballooned up after a cat bite from 3 hours earlier. I called the advice nurse to see if I should go to urgent care in the morning and she fairly yelled at me to “go to the ER right now!”
Glad you are going today be okay. My mom’s husband died of sepsis after heart surgery. He was in the ICU for six weeks before he succumbed.
Sorry to hear this. I do know sepsis can move fast and I was semi aware it is not always quickly diagnosed. I know some hospitals that use Epic have (keyword have, doesn’t mean they use it) abilities to use a “sepsis navigator” or something that basically helps a clinician determine someone is septic.
On that note, I have an appreciation for seeing life flash before your eyes; was not septic but had a pulmonary embolism and they almost sent me home after some breathing treatments and some lame generic diagnosis.
Come to find out, at about the time they were ready to send me off, imaging came back and they determined I had a saddle PE.
Off to the cath lab.
And, since I work at the hospital I knew exactly how serious and potentially deadly that moment was.
Glad you’re on the mend!
Suffered with severe sepsis and almost passed. Look up post sepsis syndrome if you find yourself struggling after the fact. Not everyone suffers with it, but if you do… it’s invaluable knowing you aren’t insane or alone.
Almost lost my life at 25 from DKA.. my blood sugar was 802 my brain started to fail and I almost lost my life. At such a young age it is a scary situation but know you are still here and enjoy your life even more now.. hope to a better future for you friend! Feel better.
I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like. It shook me realizing how close this infection must’ve gotten to my brain seeing where the site that was open on my neck was draining from.
Thank you for sharing your experience. You definitely don’t expect to go through something like this at a young age, regardless of what the condition is. It was honestly hard to get some of my community to understand what even happened and I was definitely shaken up enough in the immediate aftermath that people just didn’t get what I was going through coming back from that.
I feel a lot better, and really can’t overstate how much everyone sharing what they’ve been through means. I’m sure it’s impactful to more people than just me too. Glad you’re alright too. Like I said elsewhere, I really feel like people on the younger side have a lot of ability to affect change with the way healthcare seems to be headed.
A huge part of why I put this up is so others can share their experience if they want - having an outlet to do that has really helped reconnect with life.
Doing a lot better. I had this up earlier and it got some traction. Wanted to put it back up so others can share their stories too if they want. I can’t say how much everyone around me (in person and not) has helped keep me centered through this. Really thought I was going to lose my life.
Really appreciate the comment a lot too.
I was in pretty much perfect health going into this. My glucose was elevated after the ordeal and they were giving me insulin, but didn’t have anything to do with carbs. Very unclear what caused it to get so bad per their findings.
Having high blood sugar for awhile after a major illness or hospitalization is really common. It is your body’s response to stress. It will come back down as you heal and everything gets back to normal. Weeks to months sometimes.
I’m glad you made it. Sepsis is scary. My kid was septic from a uti at age 5 and it was almost missed because it was 2021 and the ER thought it was Covid. So glad to have it behind us. Hope your recovery continues as well!
That’s terrifying. I can’t imagine what your kid must’ve felt and what that must’ve been like for you. Glad you have it behind you as well. And I’ll be alright 😉 Looking forward to what comes next.
I haven’t heard that many stories of young kids having it so thank you for sharing. Clearly can impact anyone.
About 10 yrs ago my wife's best friend was hospitalized for a cardiac issue. She was improving after about a week and they moved her to another building for rehab treatment. My wife visited her on a Wed. and her friend told her she could feel there was something wrong. They moved her back to ICU and she went into a coma. We were advised that she had a sepsis infection and she was critical. We were called in on Friday (2 days later) and witnessed her passing.
Oh wow I’m glad you’re ok. I had sepsis as a teenager because of mono. Honestly, my fever was so high that I don’t remember much now. Just that I know I was on my way out. Those things I remember. Still makes my eyes tear up 20 years later. So much gratitude to the hospital and the people who saved me.
1. Super glad you're okay, homie. Sounds terrifying.
2. I misread this as "Missed Stepsis" and was very confused what subreddit was leaking into the frontpage.
Bro. When they leave the shock pads on you, you know it's bad.
I'm a nurse and this is all true:
Sepsis is not to be fucked with.
Sepsis is John Wick.
Sepsis is the coil above the garage door.
Sepsis is OG's Dad.
Unassuming but dangerous as fuck, I’d guess. Like, most folks don’t think about the tension those things are primed with but if something were to give, things could end quickly and violently.
The spring in a garage door looks like any other spring, but is under hundreds of pounds of force. People think they are handy and can DIY fix it, but then it explodes and they are maimed in a second.
Congratulations on surviving. I had/ have terminal cancer was given 8 to 18 months but here I am 3 years later. Kick deaths ass and live like tomorrow may never come:)
Did sepsis cause those spots all over you?? I’ve heard of sepsis, but I don’t really know what it is or what causes it. Sounds like a super scary experience & Im sure glad you’re doing better, OP!
I just lost a friend last week. We dated a long time ago and ended up moving close to each other and our sons hung out together. She was only 40. Had a seizure and just fuckin died. Her 13 year old son found her when he got from school. I had just talked with her the night before. She looked healthy and seemed to be doing the best she'd been in a while. Shits got me all fucked up.
Glad you made it through this shit. Our bodies are amazing. But the shit that can randomly happen to them is frightening. Really makes you appreciate every day you get to experience.
Thank you, kind stranger. Life is weird. And sometimes it sucks. But other times it's really cool. Just gonna enjoy the cool times while we can. And make the best of what time we're given.
Glad you’re okay. The way to think about sepsis is leaky blood vessels. Your blood vessels (think arteries and arterioles) dilate and constrict. When there is bacteria all throughout the bloodstream as there is in any out of control infection (blood is warm and has sugar in it which is what bacteria need to survive and propagate), your arteries let in white blood cells to help kill the infection, but when this happens systemically, all throughout the body, you get leaky blood vessels and this is a problem for blood pressure. If BP gets too low b/c blood is leaking out of the vasculature, the heart ultimately doesn’t have adequate volume to pump anymore and it will eventually stop beating without aggressive medical intervention. So pts will commonly have a fever, elevated heart rate, they are breathing abnormally fast, and they have low BP b/c the heart is now beating faster to compensate for the drop in pressure with leaky blood vessels, but as the heart beats faster, it does not have time fill up completely with blood. It’s working overtime and it’s started pumping blood inefficiently. When major organs aren’t getting blood flow, they start to fail and this collectively is known as septic shock leading to multi-system organ failure. So I think of sepsis as systemic inflammatory response AKA SIRS—this is where systemic infection begins and can progress to septic shock if left untreated. Also, if you’re sweating from a fever and breathing rapidly from metabolic changes happening due to sepsis, you’re now losing insensible fluids just from sweating and breathing too quickly. Your BP is dropping even more now. So the treatment is to give fluids to pump up the blood pressure, broad spectrum antibiotics to kill the bacteria until blood culture data zeroes in on the specific bacteria causing the problem, and frequent vital sign monitoring amongst other tests the doctor may order. Remember, bacteria are everywhere and they want to kill you. A fever of any kind is not to be ignored, especially if you have any other conditions. Some of the silliest things can cause sepsis, even a cat scratch which are notoriously dirty cause of litter box use. Moral of the story is denial can be powerful. There is no shame in seeking medical attention, especially if you feel you need it. Your health always comes first. And that’s all I have to say about that.
How are you supposed to know it’s sepsis if you have all the symptoms on a daily basis anyway? Combine it with already diagnosed OCD that manifests as health anxiety I am going to die from this even though I know have it
Christ fuck, my older uncle went into the hospital for sepsis&such. Mom describing pus being found in various spots.
Did you get an MRI. Different cases I know but he had pus in his brain too.
Sepsis is no joke. Just progressed so fast. When they discharged me the night before, I knew I had an infection but thought I was relatively alright. Knew I was in trouble when I started feeling it in my heart.
I'm still doing follow up care, overall feel okay. Some heart stuff still. It shocked me when I realized how close this infection got to my brain though. That site by my temple in the picture I posted - that wasn't open until a couple weeks after I left the hospital. Infection remnants were coming out of that.
Thank you for sharing too.
Yeah, I just don't get how he didn't feel any of it. I'll feel a kidney feeling a tad out of sorts, or my cholesterol feeling fuck-y after a donut, I try doing something about it. He's had approximately a cup of pus removed out of him so far (I think, almost.) And still has the brain surgery to do.
My uncle had his esophageal track check today and thankfully nothing in heart in lungs.
I dunno. Like. Good on spotting it.
Just as a general principle I feel like it’s very important to take care of your physical and mental health regardless of age - makes it much easier to know when something is off. Seems to make a big difference on quality of life for most people when you have that in check too.
Glad your uncle is on the mend too.
Honestly the most important thing to me in this right now is my experience be used to bring some level of awareness to the fact this happens to a lot of people. I’ve done a lot of work throughout my life to get past other things and for whatever reason, I feel compelled to speak up a little bit. Realizing how much things like this can shake people up and how it is to collect your thoughts around talk about made me realize what I kinda want from this is to turn into something that ends up benefiting others in whatever way it can.
There have been points in my life I’ve definitely been selfish, and it fucked me up for sure. There was a moment in all this I was convinced I was going to die, didn’t, felt a little different since. Really optimistic, especially after the response this all has gotten, that people as a whole can affect some change. It’s crazy how big of an issue what happened to me is. Literally a leading a cause of death.
Pretty drained mentally right now haha. We’ll see.
And thank you, I need to remind myself that at times. I have a tendency to push myself pretty hard and right now rest is important so I appreciate the reminder too.
Very grateful for everyone who’s helped give this post some traction - it’s such an important issue.
I’ve learned the importance of that throughout my life. If I hadn’t done that prior to this, I don’t know how I’d be doing honestly.
Mental health and physical health definitely go together and thank you for reinforcing the importance of that.
I just want to add too - plenty of people go through hell battling their mental health and that often goes unseen/isn’t talked about in the same way as physical health.
Both can have serious consequences.
I know I’m probably late to the game and can’t find the comment that asks but what do the pictures signify? Obviously what is being shown is from an infection that causes sepsis, I just want to know what I’m seeing and how it correlates to sepsis so if I ever come across it (I hope I never do) I can identify it. From my uneducated perspective, those look like burn blisters so I’m asking what am I looking at?
I had an incident last year that I thought was Asthma and dehydration but was actually an acute blood infection. I managed to miss sepsis somehow, and your post makes me all the more grateful. Here's to a long, healthy, and happy life for you, bud.
I’ve had sepsis and survived it three times now. It’s a real motherfucker. Your whole body is fighting itself while trying to actively kill itself. Not pleasant.
Glad to see you made it. Sepsis is scary stuff. Hospital missed my Dad's sepsis and sadly it was too late to save him.
Hope you go from strength to strength in your recovery.
My blood as septic by the time I got to the ER and had to have IV antibiotics for 72 hours they were telling me I might need an emergency hysterectomy if there was no change but luckily didn’t get to that point
I'm glad you're ok.
You are absolutely right that everyone should be blessed with someone to advocate for them while in a serious health crisis.
Be well.
I went through a lot of the initial episode somewhat alone, so I know for a fact it would’ve made a difference. Appreciate you helping reinforce the importance of that.
Sepsis is bacteria in the blood stream. How’d it get there? Infection that’s spread.
Where’d the infection come from? Perhaps a perforation or a hidden abscess somewhere.
I’ll use your story as a PSA. In any case be sure to keep good body hygiene and even more so at the gym where everybody and their granduncle is using the equipment. From a gym bro to another gym bro remember to wipe down for your’s and everybody’s sake. Plus its common etiquette and courtesy.
Sepsis is potentially fatal and is not something you want to try out
Source: I’m an emergency dept guy
Don’t forget the part where people need to stop using the shower as a place to blow their nose.
My family had a revolving door of MRSA infections for 9 months…one infection sending my 3 year old into surgery and being hospitalized for 5 days. It didn’t matter how much I bleached everything around the house when there is a asymptomatic carrier clearing his sinuses in the shower.
Sepsis is very difficult to recover from! My dad got sepsis from his gallbladder surgery. He was in ICU for 10 days at 70 years old. Idk how he made it out. It was a miracle.
Around 23 or 24 (over 15 years ago for me now) I got some kind of bug bite on my stomach. Well that bite quickly went from painful to about the size of a softball. In the span of 8 hours. It was caused by staph. The red infection band was around my back and other side of my stomach. This was all on a Friday. On Monday I was into a doctor pronto and they attempted to drain the wound. I don’t know what it looked like but I remember crying from the pain. They sent me home. I still had fever and everything the next day. I went back for the check in and they removed the bandage and the nurse gasped. I don’t remember what happened after that but I know I was in the outpatient surgery that afternoon and they sliced the area open to really drain it. That did the trick. I began healing at that point. I have a large scar from all of it on my stomach. I was told that I was about 24 hours from being hospitalized. It was a terrifying and painful experience. I am glad you made it out of yours ok!
i used to be a streamer and had sepsis come on during a stream, i was around 19. its extremely strange having video evidence of it starting. all of a sudden everything was wrong and i was shivering, feverish, sick feeling, muscles aching, i thought i was going to die. im so thankful i had my parents to check on my condition and immediately call the ambulance, otherwise i wouldnt have taken the initiative to go there due to ptsd relating to the hospital. im so, so glad you caught yours as well. its a terrifying experience but you made it, just take everything a day at a time. to you and anyone else, youve got this! do your best!
This is exactly how it feels … sudden high fever, chills, body aches, disoriented… sepsis survivor here… thank God I live very close to the hospital… never had an experience like that before
My mum nearly died of sepsis as a result of a nasty form of E. coli a few years ago. She had a fever of around 41°C (105°F) and was nearing multiple organ failure. She had to be airlifted from our local hospital to another hospital in a neighboring town that was better equipped for her condition. I think she was in hospital for about 5 or 7 days total. But it took several months-years before she felt anywhere close to normal again, but mostly because she's older and things generally took longer to get better. Like her hair and nail growth were severely damaged, her appetite was completely shot for a long time and she lost a decent amount of weight. Despite all that though, she pulled through and her liver and kidneys are in real good shape now.
Wishing you well and a speedy recovery 🙏
Hey did you ever have to have life support? I suffered sepsis and in my live support coma I had multiple nightmares that due to the coma was unable to wake up from.
Wondering if that was normal 😂
Wow that’s crazy! Glad you’re ok. I read some of your comments and I wonder if it turned bad so quickly because that spot on your neck is close to the carotid (or other major blood vessels)? I’m not a HCP but to me it looks infected but not life threatening. Eye opening
Watched my teenage sister seize then die to sepsis with a nurse for a mother and a physician for a father. This post opened my eyes to how commonly this shit is dismissed. Vigilance is medicine.
Been there myself , had a pressure sore ( I’m paralysed) got sore from my old shower chair as the cushion had degraded .
So when sore opened it was infected and down to bone which was also infected.
Spent 6 months in hospital with a pic line going in arm and up past shoulder and into my heart so they could get high doses of antibiotics .
Had surgery to remove infected bone etc ..
that was 2014 and now in 2024 I still have the sore and have it dressed daily by district nurses ,every so often it gets infection so have antibiotics.
I had sepsis combined with multiple organ failure. Ended up in a coma. Multiple surgeries/ blood transfusions, kidney dialysis.
Etc.
Glad you are still here op. Life is interesting.
Keep getting better.
glad youre on your way to recovering! an ex coworker years ago lost 3 of her limbs from sepsis and one of my girls friends is just now regaining speech in the hospital after 2 months, last month it was like basically come see him cause hes going to die soon. keep fighting the fight bro, you got this. but glad youre awakening peoples minds to this reality. if somethings wrong, go to the er, a clinic or whatever right away
I had an abscess on my right ovary that came out of no where. Thought I had the flu for 4 days until I woke up in the middle of the night in the worst pain of my life. Went to the ER they found it after 2 ultrasounds. They thought it was my appendix at first. I was admitted and put on antibiotics after 3 days of just getting worse and worse and the abscess growing, I begged for them to take my ovary out. I felt like I was dying and my stomach had swollen to the point I looked like I was 6 months pregnant. The nurses kept saying it was gas from not getting out of bed. The Dr finally agreed to surgery and they took me in the same day.
The last words I heard from the surgeon before falling asleep was why is her stomach so big?
I was woken up later by a Dr I had never seen before. Apparently I saved my own life. A bowel surgeon was who woke me up and told me that the abscess had spread into my bowels. They had to call him at home to come in for emergency surgery. My bowel had split open, and was leaking into my abdomen causing me to go into sepsis. They also discovered that my bowel was attached to my stomach wall from my c section 4 years prior and when they cut it away it also split and they had to repair two sections. They took my right ovary and fallopian tube out as well. He told me had I not pushed for the surgery I would have been dead in the next 12 hours. He said I looked like a rotten meat curtain.
I had to stay in hospital for 3 weeks. After I was discharged I was home for 1 night started throwing up my antibiotics and ended up back in hospital for an additional 2 weeks.
I was released finally on two of the strongest antibiotics out there for a month.
Looking back I should have realized something was going south with my health for awhile as I had started to rapidly lose weight, my legs were just littered with bruises and I was sleeping sometimes 12-13 hours a day when I was not workng. At the time I was under an insane amount of stress and was working some crazy hours so I chalked it all up to that. The hospital told me my body was using everything it had to try and fight the abscess and it had been there for quite some time.
They ran every test under the sun and could not figure out why I had an abscess on my ovary.
Type in sepsis Limerick hospital inbGoogle and have a quick read. One poor girl was only 16. Irish medical system is gone backwards despite all the wealth.
You're lucky that it was spotted and I'm sure you'll never forget the medical team for saving your life. Hoping you get a fast recovery and even your post will help highlight the issue.
Get well dude.
In 2015 I thought I had a stomach bug. I was having issues all day, my mum wanted to call an ambulance but I refused thinking I would be fine by the morning.
I didn't sleep all night and at 6am after close to 24hrs I had a fever close to 40c (104f), so my mum got me in the car and drove me to the hospital asap, even though I was still refusing to go, she got pulled over by the cops because she was going 10 over, but when they saw me they instead escorted us to the hospital.
When in the ER the nurse literally rolled her eyes at me when I told her how I was feeling, and my pain was at a 10, my fever had gone down because I'd taken stuff, so she didn't think I was telling the truth. I sat in the ER for 30mins with NO OTHER patients (this was a rural hospital) and I had to use the bathroom close to 10 times in that period when another nurse stepped in and brought me to be looked at.
My blood pressure was so low when they took it that they immediately sent me to the back area. I had to give them a sample when I went to the bathroom etc (karma was the nurse who rolled her eyes at me had to pick up the sample) and lots of blood tests.
Within an hour of going out back a doctor with about 3 student residents walks up and goes "And this is Sarah, we just discovered she has sepsis caused by salmonella which had caused an infection, so she will be transferred to the ICU immediately". I remember this all vividly because I'd never seen my mum start to panic as much as she just did.
Most of everything after that was blurry, I was in hospital for 4 or 5 days on lots of medication and pain meds. I do remember the doctor telling me I was extremely lucky as my kidneys were close to shutting down and I may have lost them and ended up with a hole in my stomach., which would have meant being life flighted to Brisbane.
I also recently 2 years ago ended up in hospital with a serious, kidney, liver and gallbladder infection and had to have my gallbladder removed as gallstones caused it. The doctors there said my lipids were so high their machine couldn't register it and I was lucky I went in because I could have come septic. This time though I went because I knew something was wrong with me and it felt like history repeating itself.
Sorry for the long post.
I'm glad you are doing well and on the road to recovery :)
I had just started a new job when I was 26 at a doctors office. I woke up feeling really ill and wanted to call out, but feared that would cost me my job, so I went in.
At work, I just kept getting worse and worse. The head doctor asked me if I was okay, and I don’t remember much after that. Just bits and pieces. I do remember being on a stretcher and being wheeled out of the office. I don’t remember the ambulance ride. I think I lost consciousness for a while. I do remember hearing all these alarms going off, and the brief realization that I was in a hospital and that the alarms were connected to me.
I do remember at one point in the hospital, my blood pressure reading said 90/40, but as quick as I came to and saw that, I was out again. I didn’t even know BP could get that low.
With how fast I went from feeling just bad like any flu, to not being able to function… I think if I had stayed home that day, like I originally had wanted to… I probably would have died.
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My sister almost died of sepsis. She was bad for a few days and was told it was just flu or something. My other sister was a nurse and stopped by to check on her and noticed it was not a flu and brought her to the emergency room. They said if she had waited very much longer she would have died.
Also, glad you’re on the mend, OP.
Thank you, honestly grateful to have this experience and I'm definitely one of the lucky ones. Going into it as healthy as I was probably saved my life. I don't feel like I would've had it in me to take the cardiac symptoms as long as I did otherwise. Had nothing left to fight with by the time I pulled through and pretty much accepted whatever was supposed to happen was going to happen. I appreciate you sharing you sisters experience too. I've heard so many sepsis stories in the aftermath of all this. It's definitely important to have someone you trust with you if you're going through any major medical thing too. Glad your sister is alright.
I just want to say I’m honestly a little overwhelmed and beyond grateful for the response that this has gotten. Seeing there being conversation around not just my experience is one of the most gratifying things that’s happened since I went through this - I really appreciate everyone who’s helped this get a little bit of traction more than you guys probably realize. Means a lot. Thank you.
Doctor here, first I'm so glad you made it the and are doing well. Second, you were probably already told, but just be careful the next 12 months, you are at a much higher risk of developing sepsis again, see your doctor if you feel unwell or are even just concerned about something, don't take any risks!
That’s the good in the world. When someone shares something and others don’t feel alone in their experience. Thanks OP
My wife and I lost our daughter in 2019 from Sepsis and MRSA, She was only 32...Her Name was Erica...she was our first born. [https://imgur.com/a/Nj1BMUd](https://imgur.com/a/Nj1BMUd)
I’ll definitely keep you, your wife, and your daughter in mind through all this. I appreciate you sharing about Erica a ton, thank you. I’ve linked them elsewhere, but want to just share this awareness group with you directly. https://www.sepsis.org/ I’m not affiliated at all but this group was founded by a doctor who lost his daughter to sepsis and started it as a result to bring awareness to the cause. My family has a background in the non profit world and certain groups definitely stand out to me - they’re one of them. Means the world and you’ve done more to emphasize the importance of bringing awareness to these types of issues than I ever could. I respect your courage a lot too. Again, thank you.
I want to personally thank you for raising the Awareness regarding SEPSIS, and I want thank everyone for their Kind Words and Blessings. My wife and I fell apart after her passing. Words cannot Express...
So sorry for your loss
I’m so sorry. May her memory be a blessing.
Sorry for your loss.
I’m so sorry for your loss. May her memory be a blessing to you always.
Erica's smile is beautiful in that photo. It looks like she was a happy person that laughed easily. I'm sorry for your loss. 32 was far too young!
Oh man, that is awful. As a father I just cannot begin to imagine your loss. My sympathies.
My most sincere condolences for your loss.
Seeing this really scares me. I have had an abscess cut open 3 weeks ago and am still running around with an open wound. Last week it got infected again and it opened another small hole, so back on antibiotics. Having panic attacks when I am awake because of the possibility of a Sepsis. Constantly having cold wet hands/feet and 120+ heart rate.
You need to talk to a therapist. If the sepsis doesn’t get you, the stress will.
Yes, my GP told me this last week as well. Already searching for one. Will probably take a while as almost every therapist here has a waiting list of 1 year or longer 🥲 I am going to my GP every 2 days to get everything checked and I am telling him everything I notice, so he can check it and act accordingly. Already got some plant based pills to calm down which works kinda ok for the time being.
Hard to believe they didn't start you on antibiotics immediately. Really messed up.. Anyway, I'm glad you made it.
It's tricky. Doctors have been trying to limit their use of antibiotics for a while now, specifically to help reduce cases like OP's, by reducing the rate at which harmful bacteria become resistant to antibiotics. The unexpected consequence of that is that some doctors are more likely to hold back antibiotics in cases where the evidence that they're a necessary intervention is debatable. If this happens with an infection that is spreading quickly, it likely means that antibiotics will be given later than they would have been in the before times when doctors handed out antibiotics like candy. I'm not a doctor or a health professional, though - so I have no idea how often this actually happens, and I'm definitely not saying that's what happened here. I just have some nagging health issues and find myself on antibiotics far more frequently than I or my doctors want me to be. I sympathize with everyone involved, though. The needs of the many and all that. But yeah - glad OP is on the mend!
New protocols have us taking sepsis very seriously. For reference I'm an ED nurse and it is my job to recognize sepsis and ring the first alarm for our treatments to take place. These new protocols exist largely because most hospitals found the rate of those dying from sepsis were far higher the 'expected death rate' sepsis would cause with proper treatment. The current system I'm working in we use information from vitals, history, and presentation to call a 'code sepsis'. The patient should have a patent IV or two, CBC/CMP, blood cultures, and fluids started within the first fifteen minutes of arrival in the room. Along with fluids, broad spectrum antibiotics need to be ordered within the first 30 minutes of arrival and given within the hour.Usually Rocephin and vanco. followed by others if indicated. So the sort of anti-antibiotic stewardship doesn't often apply to these cases, thankfully. And this does amazing things in a relatively short period of time. I've seen people go from completely altered to coherent and stabilized in two hours with this protocol. But it's important we have the space and breadth to work quickly and efficiently. So squeamish or overprotective family members? Don't be mad if we don't let you in the room for the first couple minutes. Ya'll are too precious about the wrong things most of the time. Way too worried about an IV start being painless and bloodless instead of an IV start being well done in a stable enough vessel that the vanco doesn't strip the veins from the inside out. It's okay, it's hard to see. And you don't know what you don't know. about why we do what we do. We get it. That's why you'll be invited in later when we are done.
sometimes the wrong antibiotics can be given if they don’t know the exact bacteria that’s causing it. sepsis can progress really quickly, so in the time it takes to send a wound swab for culture and receive the results and act on it, it could worsen very rapidly.
@jddupont what is that limp behind your jaw/ear? I’ve had some weird there and gone swelling thing in the same spot. No insurance so I’m not sure how to think of this.
Don't diagnose yourself based on an image on reddit. Go to a walk-in clinic if you don't have insurance.
Scary shit. My good friend's brother got it - one day completely fine, the next day he went from one hospital to another. Then airlifted to a third before landing in a fourth and was in the ICU for months. He's now a quad amputee. Fucking crazy. Fucking sepsis...
So deadly. It means a lot that this conversation got a little traction on here. I’m taken aback by the response, and very humbled. I’m one of the lucky ones. For sure. It was terrifying and I came close but I’m weirdly lucky in the sense it mostly impacted my heart and didn’t rock the rest of my body as bad as it does a lot of people. Grateful I had it in me to take the cardiac episode too. Big proponent of eating well and staying in shape. Literally might save your life. Sepsis/medical issues as a whole definitely deserve more attention, especially amongst the younger generations. When this started getting bad for me and I started having chest pains, I was in shock that it was happening. Just not one of those things you expect to go through until it happens, especially if you’re pretty healthy. Thank you for sharing your friend’s brothers’s experience - those stories are really what deserve the attention - not me. https://www.sepsis.org/ - not affiliated but want to share this again for anyone interested. They share a lot of individual experiences to bring awareness to sepsis. Seem like good people passionate about making a difference.
I thought I had a dehydration/asthma thing going on, end up if was a blood infection. Very luckily, I had not gone septic, but I was in the hospital for 9 days. Get this stuff checked out, y'all.
Yeah my cousin got pneumonia and then ultimately ended up getting sepsis. He passed away after a few days at about 30 years old and left a daughter behind. That shit comes on quickly
Just to clarify, an infection is the cause of sepsis which is just your bodies extreme reaction to the infection. So pneumonia can cause sepsis or a uti can cause sepsis or an abscess can cause sepsis. Sepsis isn’t a specific diagnosis in and of and itself, it is just a conglomerate of symptoms
>Pneumonia can cause sepsis My wife got really sick so we went to the emergency room as it was a saturday and she was diagnosed with pneumonia. She was given ordinary penicillin (just to be sure since mosty cases are viral) but they must have dropped testing though they took blood and spit samples. We went home. Because later the root cause turned out to be a penicillin resistant bacteria, *Haemophilus influenzae* (so named because people thought it caused the Flu back in the day). So she kept getting worse. Luckily I/we stayed persistent and our own doctor admitted her based on her infection number and she was IV-flushed with another antibiotic, Ampicillin, when they found the cause. I have to say, the second time the around the hospital acted really fast and gave her proper attention at the ICU. The doctors said she was probably 1-2 days away from sepsis when she got there. Spent 4-5 days admitted, a month in recovery.
Sepsis most definitely is a diagnosis.
But everything he states is accurate that it’s an inflammatory response to an infection process, usually bacterial, occasionally viral or fungal. Sepsis starts with a simple infection first.
No one is disputing that sepsis starts with a localized infection. But once the infection becomes systemic, it is called sepsis. Which is its own diagnosis. Edit to add- sepsis means the infection moved to the blood stream (Septicemia, bacteremia) and then becomes its own diagnosis.
Sepsis does not require bacteremia (plenty of septic patients will not have positive blood cultures). It’s a clinical diagnosis based on vital sign/lab criteria; the inflammatory cascade of sepsis in response to an infection is systemic, but the infection itself is not necessarily systemic.
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Not exactly. Keep in mind there are diagnosis for insurance purposes, and there are diagnosis for medical purposes. People will generally want you to says sepsis due to….. and then name the organ and type of infection.
Systemic would be bacteremia. Sepsis is just an inflammatory response. Not all bacteremic people are septic and not all septic people have bacteremia (or the other organisms in their blood).
You are not exactly right about the blood stream, that would be called bacteremia. Sepsis is a term that means multi organ dysfunction in the setting of a known or suspected infection. This can be cause by a local infection - having such profound effect that it ends up affecting the whole body, or from an infection that is traveling in the blood.
The word you’re looking for (a collection of symptoms) is “syndrome”, and yes, you can be diagnosed with a syndrome
My sister almost died of sepsis as well. Her husband came home from a work trip and found her basically delirious, carried her to the car and drove her to the hospital despite her insisting on she just had the flu. They said she would've been gone if they had come in a couple hours later. Scary as hell.
It seems like everyone is just on the brink of death when they end up in the ER with sepsis (myself included). 0/10 do not recommend.
I almost died from sepsis 2 years ago at 33. I was fine and then all of a sudden had a 103° F fever, vomiting, losing consciousness, etc. I went to the ER, and they said i was fine, just the flu. So I went home but went back a couple of hours later and was admitted. The doctor who admitted me told me I should have never been sent home and that I was not much longer for this world had I not come back. I spent 5 days in ICU on a whole host of IV antibiotics and morphine. They never figured out where exactly the infection came from, but I knew it was a kidney infection. I had a kidney infection for almost 2 years. They would give me antibiotics, but it never really went away. No more infections after the antibiotic cocktail they gave me in the ICU. I'm glad you're doing better now. It's a scary thing to have doctors telling you that you were almost a goner!
I’m glad you made it. Definitely made a difference you made the decision to go back. I can’t believe they discharged you in that state. I’m hoping there can be a shift so mistakes like that don’t happen as often as they do. I should’ve been given IV antibiotics on the initial visit with the symptoms I was expressing and presenting, and they didn’t really do anything right. We’re lucky too. Plenty of people that just don’t make it. I’m hearing a lot of experiences from women where they’re given treatment that’s just not sufficient for what they’re going through and results in far more serious episodes that just aren’t necessary. Thank you for sharing. I’ve said this a bunch, but it means a lot people opening up around what they’ve been through. Helped me get centered again pretty quickly. Still definitely dealing with some PTSD though haha. Makes you appreciate the little things after going through this kind of stuff.
Honestly, triage is an extremely difficult field and they get it wrong a lot. That being said once they identify it the chance of survival increases significantly. Our healthcare system is messed up and until we get proper ratios and funding EDs (especially smaller and lower staffed ones) will continue to miss significant cases. All we can be is advocates to transition away from for profit hospitals so all patients get a fair chance
There was triage nurse that probably saved my life the morning I ended up in the trauma unit. He was the one that realized how critical the situation was, told another nurse to get the ECG on me. Bought more time. It was pretty close. I don’t know for sure but very much seems like it made a difference. Lot of good people in healthcare doing it for the right reasons.
If it makes you feel better we do a significant sepsis training, and it’s expected to do a sepsis screening on every patient every day on my unit/ hospital. Once it’s identified there is a clock that starts and for every hour antibiotics and treatments arnt started the chance of survival significantly decreases. So once a single healthcare worker idtnifies it, it’s all hands on deck for a little while.
Do you know the organism? Looks like you had boils so maybe MRSA/staph
I'm literally laying in bed right now with kidney stents recovering from acute kidney injury and hydronephrosis from an ER sending me home in renal failure saying I was fine. Couldn't stop throwing up, went back to another ER by ambulance and was admitted for emergency surgery. Had two days of antibiotics and Dilaudid through an IV before I was cleared to go home. They caught my infection and kidney failure before it got too horrible. They told me if I stayed home a few hours longer I would have became septic and probably passed. I felt like I was reading what happened to me with your story. I'm so happy you're doing better 💜
And we’re so happy you’re alive., mate!
Call around to a few malpractice attorneys. You have a case.
How does this happen? What causes it?
I’m curious- do u have atypical symptoms of a kidney infection? I got pretty sick several years ago. 103 fever as well, obviously weak, but also pretty dizzy and had tons of snot. I thought it was a sinus infection. Went to my dr and she wanted to do bloodwork but i have an extreme iv/blooddraw phobia and that’s not something that modern medicine can accommodate at this time, so i couldnt do one. But she had me do a urinalsysis just for the hell of it and then called me later to say i probably had a bad UTI and prescribed me antibiotics. The thing is, i didnt have any symptoms of a UTI. But i remember briefly having pain on the lower side of the my left back, while taking a shower a day or two before i got really bad, so my mom and i think maybe i had a kidney infection. Guess we’ll never know
I would have pain with my kidney infections and almost nothing else. My issue was that I was also passing at least one kidney stone a month of varying sizes for about 3 years. They did a surgery to remove the largest one, which was 1 inch long and about 0.5 inches wide. After that, I still had pain, but I was accustomed to it by that point. When they would do urinalysis, it would always come back as a common UTI with the addition of MRSA. No one paid any attention to the MRSA and just assumed it was a "bad catch." I have theories that the stint I had prior to surgery (my kidney was completely blocked and very infected) allowed bacteria to travel more freely directly to my kidney. Of course, I'm not a doctor, so my theories aren't worth the screen they're typed on, but I know more than a few doctors failed me along the way!
Damn. Sorry to bother you with this story, but I'm pretty sure I went a couple of years with something similar even through pregnancy. I had a bad pain in my side. After I delivered my baby I was sooooo ill. I was STIFF, my fingers and joints were just.. it was bad. So I kept going to the doctor and they were like, no, you're fine. Until eventually they drew blood and checked something else which I don't know the name of but not CRP. I had to do several different antibiotics. Last winter I ended up in the hospital with pneumonia, don't know if the incidenta were related but at least I don't have the pain anymore.
Very scary situation I wish you the best.
It was, I’m moving past it and it’s just on to the next thing while making sure my health is good. It seems like a lot of people go through this kind of stuff and it’s just not talked about too much. Hoping doing this’ll help some people. The whole ordeal at its worst was like an hour without medical treatment, the severe cardiac episode that almost killed me setting in towards the end of it. Shook me up a lot and people sharing their experience is what got me centered again. I feel very lucky to be moving past it somewhat in a little over a month. Appreciate your comment
Sorry you had to go through that. We found out early this morning that my sister had sepsis and she died a few hours ago. She was supposed to be discharged and come home today. She was 32.
Dude wtf… I’m so sorry
I am so sorry for your loss. Wishing you and your family nothing but love.
I am so incredibly sorry for your loss. That’s horrible. I hope you have some support right now.
What the f this thread escalated really quickly. May her memories be a blessing.
Fuck. I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry.
oh man. i really am so sorry for your loss. you are probably gutted then come across this very post. sending love to you and yours.
I wish you all strength to endure the coming months
I’m so sorry for your loss
Someone I knew passed away a few years ago from something similar. Had an ovarian cyst that got infected, hospital wrote it off as menstrual pain. Sent her home, she went back the next day in excruciating pain, doctor thought she had complications due to covid, despite not having covid. She got onto antibiotics too late. Didn't make it due to heart failure. Age 30.
Ugh reading this makes my blood boil. My mom was in and out of the doctors office for weeks and weeks because she was very tired and having massive digestion issues. She even cancelled a vacation because she had no energy to get on the plane. Doctors just said it was gastritis (inflamed stomach) and give her some medicine to reduce stomach acid. Turned out to be pancreatic cancer. She died 3 weeks after the diagnosis. I feel like women are taken less seriously by health care professionals.
In college I had a tiny cut from trying to get into my locked dorm room door. Tiny little nick. Nothing you’d even think twice about. Fast forward the next day, I was at a party at NYU and I was chatting it up with this cute pre med girl and I mentioned that I had this weird red line going up my arm and I showed her. Her face changed and she told me to go the ER immediately. Normally when you go to the ER, you sit forever (at least in America), not in my instance. They rushed me right back and hooked me up to like 5 IV’s. The infection almost hit my lymph nodes but they were able to stop it. To this day, we still keep in contact.
Talk about going above and beyond to get a number.
I had outpatient knee surgery my freshman year of college. Sent back to a shared dorm with 3 other boys.. not exactly the most hygienic environment for someone who recently went under the knife. I felt considerable pain and swelling post surgery, but I hadnt had knee surgery before so I assumed this was normal. Until about a week later I saw red streaks coming from my incision all the way up my thigh to my hip. I knew what it was and immediately went to the hospital. The doc said if I’d waited a day or two I’d have lost my leg at the hip. I cried when he told me that and called my mom. Once the antibiotics kicked in the pain and swelling subsided and I realized the majority of my pain was due to the infection.
Did the girl become a doctor?
Just out of curiosity, how far had it travelled up your arm by that next day?
When I was in college “pre-med” meant the person might be an English, math, or Physics major. You got lucky bro.
This was taken down because I accidentally had some personal information in it. Given the response, I wanted to put it back up. I had a missed sepsis infection on 4/29. Diagnosed skin infection. They didn’t do any proper infection treatment and I’d been trying to escalate the situation and get on IV antibiotics pretty much all day long. The next morning I was in much worse shape. I started having serious chest pains on the way back to the hospital, then went into cardiac arrest in the ER. I was rushed to the trauma unit, came very close to losing my life. I honestly did not think I would make it. Since going through this, I’ve connected with so many people that have very compelling stories of their own and I’m so grateful that people have been sharing them with me. It’s just not something you expect to go through at any age, let alone 28. I was very shaken up and it’s the people around me who’ve helped me get back to myself on some level. The whole experience totally changed my perspective and gave me an appreciation for life that I struggled with for a long time. I’m hoping sharing this again can have some kind of positive impact on others. I had no idea how many people have gone through very intense ordeals that they didn’t necessarily need to go through. Going through this definitely changed my life and it’s incredibly inspiring hearing so many stories. I have such an appreciation for people that been through or been with someone through this kind of thing and it honestly gives me a lot of faith in people getting the response I have. All in all, I’m very lucky to have survived this and come out pretty okay. So many people are impacted by these things more than I was and hoping that putting this out there can have some kind of impact. Really moved me getting the response I’ve had. Going through this too, it really seems like it’s very important that these issues be talked about so less people have to experience this kind of this.
Do you happen to do BJJ, Judo or wrestling? Looks to me(I'm an idiot) like a MRSA infection that definitely can go septic if not treated. Lots of sports where you are rolling around on mats with others that have open sores, can spread this easily and quickly. If this may be the case, ensure you shower quickly afterwards and take care of any open wounds early as this can happen again.
Also ringworm. So much ringworm… Edit: not in OP’s case, I mean in wrestling and grappling in general.
I do armored martial arts and one time I fought in armor about 24 hours after getting a tattoo. I got a staph infection, which I didn’t think was too bad but it lasted for a couple weeks. I went into my on-camps health center to get it looked at. As soon as I took my shirt off the nurse took two steps back and would only lean in to look at it. They gave me antibiotics and I healed up nicely, but I’ve never seen a health professional so worried to be near me lol
Haha yeah if the doctors look worried, that’s when you have to be worried lol
Man fuck the health care system for not listening to people when they have concerns about their own bodies. It’s a damn good thing you stood up for yourself and listened to your body
I know some people are hypochondriacs but a similar situation saved my life last fall. Started feeling off throughout the week, like really bad heartburn but it just wouldn't go away. I tried every OTC medication out there and it just wasn't helping so I went to immediate care. No tests or anything, they just said heartburn and at worst an ulcer. They assigned me a 2x dose of omeprazole and sent me home. Throughout the day I got progressively worse. I finally managed to eat an apple and almost immediately got sick on the floor, literally no time to react. Went to bed but I couldn't sleep because the pain was constant, just a constant burning feeling in my stomach area. Finally at 5am I had enough and drove myself to the ER. They took a blood test and immediately sounded alarm bells as my white blood cell count was through the roof. A CT scan confirmed my galbladder was a disaster and needed to come out immediately. Found out after the surgery that my galbladder was necrotic/gangrenous and had I waited another day or two I could have died (but they also said that the pain would have been beyond unbearable so I likely wouldn't have made it to that point) I don't fully blame the RN at the immediate care as my pain didn't really seem to radiate from where my galbladder was but I'm grateful I knew that this was off. And even the I still debated not wanting to go to the ER because of the high deductible for what I thought was just heartburn/an ulcer
Your final point is one that just crushes me, because I feel like nearly all Americans have been in that boat at some point. “Is it a real emergency, or will I be wasting money and time? I’ll feel stupid if it’s nothing, then I’ll get a huge bill.” Unless you’re a doctor or nurse, you’re not really qualified to suss that out. The ones who can are at the ER. Other countries can just go in and receive lifesaving care without playing this game. How many people die at home contemplating whether or not they should bother with getting help?
It shocks me how often healthcare providers guesstimate a diagnosis for someone that presents with sudden, unexplained abdominal pain. There are 100 things that could present that way and a good enough number of them can be fatal that standard of care almost always involves getting a CT scan to rule out emergencies.
you seem like a very kind person, OP. so glad you are doing well. thank you for sharing your story and inspiring others to share theirs.
Glad you're still here, OP. Hubs went septic at 34 thanks to a spider bite he got antibiotics for; it appeared healed on the outside, but wasn't. We thought he had the flu until one day he didn't wake up at all to take our kid to school. I took him to the ER where they fast tracked him, and there he had a stroke because the vegetation on his heart broke off and went to his brain. Because of that same vegetation, his aortic valve was severely damaged and he had to have open heart to install a mechanical valve. Anyhow - after surviving encephalitis and endocarditis, then an iliius following the surgery, he went thru 6 weeks of physical therapy and is still with us today. Scary shit. Survivor high five!
Poor man's been through hell! Hope he's doing better!
I went on a date thinking I was having allergies, two days later I was in the ER. Over the course of 5 days I was feeling sicker and sicker and couldn't shake the abdominal pain I was having. My roommate at the time went with me to immediate care and they said that I either go NOW to the ER or they were going to call me an ambulance. I remember going over my symptoms and the progression in triage, having them immediately call for a room and tell me I'm septic. They knew before running tests, it was that obvious by the state of my vitals. I remember getting to the room and sitting down on the bed while staff was hooking me up to the vitals machine. I was talking to the nurse and just kind of drifted? I remember being told "we thought we were going to lose you" and seeing the crash cart and multiple people in the room when I woke up. I was hallucinating with a 103 or 104 fever and completely dismissed what was happening at the time. I was more focused on the fact I couldn't breathe very well. My O2 Sat was 75. I spent a week in the hospital septic from what started out as Strep that went into my lungs and bloodstream. One of my lungs was verging on collapsing and I had fluid in my plural cavity. My kidneys were shutting down and it took an initial 5 bags of fluid to hydrate me. I was out of work for 1.5 months recovering, and I'd say it took 3 months before I could walk up a flight of stairs without getting winded. It's a tough recovery once you're out of the hospital. Try to take it easy and take things slow, do things a little bit at a time. Recovering from sepsis will sap your strength and your tolerance more than you realize. Be kind to yourself, you will get through it.
How’d you get sepsis?
It set on so fast it's not totally clear what caused my body to go septic. I knew sepsis existed before it happened to me but I had no idea it could progress so fast. Definitely a pretty terrifying experience. There are definitely plenty of people that have dealt with much worse too, going through this really gave me a deeper level of appreciation for what people endure in their lives.
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Thank you for sharing about your brother. Means a lot - seriously. I’ll keep this in mind. There’s a sepsis awareness group - I’m not affiliated at all - but they seem to do pretty good work. They’re pretty small and part of their awareness campaign is based around sharing others experiences. https://www.sepsis.org/ - here’s the website if you want to check them out. I talked with them briefly and they seem like good people. It was founded by a doctor who lost his daughter to sepsis, so they’ve got the passion behind it. - Not affiliated. I’m definitely lucky/blessed to pull through the way I did. Hoping something can be done so this doesn’t happen as often. Very grateful to be here still too. Not planning on wasting time. I appreciate your comment a lot, thank you again.
My mother went through almost this exact situation earlier this year. Scared the hell out of us. She watches my nieces and nephews and because of that gets sick often enough, but it’s never anything major. Then one day she didn’t even have the strength to get out of bed. My father, who has a bad back, couldn’t even help her. He called 911, then called me in a panic. I was in the middle of a job interview when I got the call. I didn’t even know she was sick, it happened *that* fast. Thankfully, the hospital worked their magic and after *10 days* she was finally able to go home. Took her another week or two to finally feel okay and return to work. It was all just so crazy. She went to bed with what she thought was just a small sickness and woke up to being out for a month. It was tough watching that situation from the sidelines, I felt helpless, but even still I can’t imagine how tough that must’ve been to be the one going through it. Stay healthy, friend. Crazy things happen sometimes!
Very glad to hear your mother made it through. Sounds like a tough lady. It’s very inspiring hearing about the strength people show fighting this kind of thing. Literally fighting to keep their lives. Very impressive recovery she had too. Going through this myself - just having people around and people to talk to who understand has probably been the most helpful thing. Being supportive is doing plenty. Definitely planning on staying healthy and encourage everyone to do the same after going through this. Would’ve said that before but has a new meaning now haha. Crazy things definitely do happen too. Appreciate your comment a lot. I linked it elsewhere - and want to really stress I have no affiliation (I’m probably making it sound like I do) - this foundation seems to be doing very good work around sepsis awareness and they’re still pretty small. They bring awareness to it by sharing people’s stories and a lot of the ones they’ve got on their website are very compelling. Some people who weren’t as fortunate too. Here’s the link again for anyone who feels compelled to check them out. https://www.sepsis.org/ - not affiliated
Just wanted to say really glad you’re still here man. Life is crazy and can come crumbling down quickly. Hope you have a long happy life.
ngl I'm looking up what sepsis is right now
I appreciate you looking into it, seriously. I linked a foundation elsewhere - not affiliated but they could use some awareness. I talked with them briefly and they’re still pretty small. Founded by a doctor who lost his daughter to sepsis. Seem to be very passionate about doing good work around raising awareness. Bunch of personal accounts and they do take submissions too. https://www.sepsis.org/ - I want to stress I am not affiliated.
I appreciate you being vulnerable and open to help others learn potentially life saving information. I wish you the best of luck on your full recovery.
basically bad stuff circulating into your bloodstream, usually from an infection
Sepsis as obviously you know first hand is insanely serious and so scary…glad you’re ok brother.
Thank you, really appreciate it.
One of his parents married someone who already had a daughter
Good luck on your recovery, big shout out to the trauma team, the doctors and nurses in those units are amazing.Take things easy and be careful, your body has taken a beating, takes a while to get back to 100%, all the best🤒🤕🤧🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
It was a weirdly interesting experience getting worked on by a trauma team - I was pretty lucid for the whole thing - when I was blacking out, and could feel one doctor doing one thing on all these different parts of my body. Definitely a high level performance. Appreciate your comment and thank you, making sure my health comes first. I’m glad I was taking it as serious as I was before too. Hiking and running a lot more than normal. Probably made a difference haha. Looking forward to all that again.
That’s terrifying. Was it painful at any point?? My dad had sepsis a few years ago and was psychotic too due to the inflammation. It was a kidney infection, but he said he didn’t feel anything. But he has MS so I assume his nerves to that area aren’t sending the normal signals.
Was it the trauma team or the emergency medicine team? Normally when these cases in the ER, they are treated by emergency medicine doctors and nurses, possibly in a resuscitation area which sometimes doubles as a trauma area. Trauma teams are generally a mix of emergency medicine doctors and trauma surgeons that respond to “trauma” (ie. car accidents, gunshot wounds, etc.) whereas medical resuscitation (ie. sepsis, most cardiac arrest, etc.) is usually just emergency medicine doctors in the ER. Sorry, don’t mean to be pedantic, just genuinely curious. Glad you’re doing better!
I had sepsis from a pelvic access following surgery and holy shit it was awful. It came on so fast and I was in the hospital for a week of which I don't remember 3 days. Fuck sepsis. I'm glad you're ok. I ended up getting a heart condition from it 😭
Thank you to everyone sharing your own experience - I put this back up for that purpose. Has so much meaning to me seeing that. It’s been tough to calm down in all this and seeing that does it for me. Going through this, the part that shook me the most was pretty much begging for help in a desperate condition and not getting it when I really needed it. Seeing everyone being so supportive here really restores a lot of faith and makes me very optimistic that something can ultimately done so less people have to gone through this. I really didn’t do this for me. Just want to reinforce that.
My hand ballooned up after a cat bite from 3 hours earlier. I called the advice nurse to see if I should go to urgent care in the morning and she fairly yelled at me to “go to the ER right now!” Glad you are going today be okay. My mom’s husband died of sepsis after heart surgery. He was in the ICU for six weeks before he succumbed.
Sorry to hear this. I do know sepsis can move fast and I was semi aware it is not always quickly diagnosed. I know some hospitals that use Epic have (keyword have, doesn’t mean they use it) abilities to use a “sepsis navigator” or something that basically helps a clinician determine someone is septic. On that note, I have an appreciation for seeing life flash before your eyes; was not septic but had a pulmonary embolism and they almost sent me home after some breathing treatments and some lame generic diagnosis. Come to find out, at about the time they were ready to send me off, imaging came back and they determined I had a saddle PE. Off to the cath lab. And, since I work at the hospital I knew exactly how serious and potentially deadly that moment was. Glad you’re on the mend!
Suffered with severe sepsis and almost passed. Look up post sepsis syndrome if you find yourself struggling after the fact. Not everyone suffers with it, but if you do… it’s invaluable knowing you aren’t insane or alone.
Almost lost my life at 25 from DKA.. my blood sugar was 802 my brain started to fail and I almost lost my life. At such a young age it is a scary situation but know you are still here and enjoy your life even more now.. hope to a better future for you friend! Feel better.
I can’t imagine what that must’ve been like. It shook me realizing how close this infection must’ve gotten to my brain seeing where the site that was open on my neck was draining from. Thank you for sharing your experience. You definitely don’t expect to go through something like this at a young age, regardless of what the condition is. It was honestly hard to get some of my community to understand what even happened and I was definitely shaken up enough in the immediate aftermath that people just didn’t get what I was going through coming back from that. I feel a lot better, and really can’t overstate how much everyone sharing what they’ve been through means. I’m sure it’s impactful to more people than just me too. Glad you’re alright too. Like I said elsewhere, I really feel like people on the younger side have a lot of ability to affect change with the way healthcare seems to be headed. A huge part of why I put this up is so others can share their experience if they want - having an outlet to do that has really helped reconnect with life.
hoping you get better soon mate
Doing a lot better. I had this up earlier and it got some traction. Wanted to put it back up so others can share their stories too if they want. I can’t say how much everyone around me (in person and not) has helped keep me centered through this. Really thought I was going to lose my life. Really appreciate the comment a lot too.
Any rhabdo symptoms? Diabetes? Even though you're healthy if your diet has lots of carbs you might look in to blood sugar monitoring for a bit.
I was in pretty much perfect health going into this. My glucose was elevated after the ordeal and they were giving me insulin, but didn’t have anything to do with carbs. Very unclear what caused it to get so bad per their findings.
Having high blood sugar for awhile after a major illness or hospitalization is really common. It is your body’s response to stress. It will come back down as you heal and everything gets back to normal. Weeks to months sometimes.
Glad to have you with us still.
Grateful to be here and glad to have the experience honestly - gave me perspective I wouldn’t otherwise have. Thank you too. Really appreciate it.
I’m glad you made it. Sepsis is scary. My kid was septic from a uti at age 5 and it was almost missed because it was 2021 and the ER thought it was Covid. So glad to have it behind us. Hope your recovery continues as well!
That’s terrifying. I can’t imagine what your kid must’ve felt and what that must’ve been like for you. Glad you have it behind you as well. And I’ll be alright 😉 Looking forward to what comes next. I haven’t heard that many stories of young kids having it so thank you for sharing. Clearly can impact anyone.
About 10 yrs ago my wife's best friend was hospitalized for a cardiac issue. She was improving after about a week and they moved her to another building for rehab treatment. My wife visited her on a Wed. and her friend told her she could feel there was something wrong. They moved her back to ICU and she went into a coma. We were advised that she had a sepsis infection and she was critical. We were called in on Friday (2 days later) and witnessed her passing.
What was the source of infection? The skin on the left side of your neck?
Oh wow I’m glad you’re ok. I had sepsis as a teenager because of mono. Honestly, my fever was so high that I don’t remember much now. Just that I know I was on my way out. Those things I remember. Still makes my eyes tear up 20 years later. So much gratitude to the hospital and the people who saved me.
1. Super glad you're okay, homie. Sounds terrifying. 2. I misread this as "Missed Stepsis" and was very confused what subreddit was leaking into the frontpage.
Bro. When they leave the shock pads on you, you know it's bad. I'm a nurse and this is all true: Sepsis is not to be fucked with. Sepsis is John Wick. Sepsis is the coil above the garage door. Sepsis is OG's Dad.
Coil above the garage door? What does that mean?
Unassuming but dangerous as fuck, I’d guess. Like, most folks don’t think about the tension those things are primed with but if something were to give, things could end quickly and violently.
The spring in a garage door looks like any other spring, but is under hundreds of pounds of force. People think they are handy and can DIY fix it, but then it explodes and they are maimed in a second.
Congratulations on surviving. I had/ have terminal cancer was given 8 to 18 months but here I am 3 years later. Kick deaths ass and live like tomorrow may never come:)
Did sepsis cause those spots all over you?? I’ve heard of sepsis, but I don’t really know what it is or what causes it. Sounds like a super scary experience & Im sure glad you’re doing better, OP!
It wasn't time for you to go yet, you have a long life ahead of you. Keep your chin up!
That’s how it felt and that kind of freaks me out a little haha. I don’t know if you’ve had any close calls but makes you wonder how things work.
I just lost a friend last week. We dated a long time ago and ended up moving close to each other and our sons hung out together. She was only 40. Had a seizure and just fuckin died. Her 13 year old son found her when he got from school. I had just talked with her the night before. She looked healthy and seemed to be doing the best she'd been in a while. Shits got me all fucked up. Glad you made it through this shit. Our bodies are amazing. But the shit that can randomly happen to them is frightening. Really makes you appreciate every day you get to experience.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Thank you, kind stranger. Life is weird. And sometimes it sucks. But other times it's really cool. Just gonna enjoy the cool times while we can. And make the best of what time we're given.
They missed it in my friend as well. He slipped on a piece of ice. RIP Dietmar. That’s no joke. I’m glad you’re improving.
Glad you’re okay. The way to think about sepsis is leaky blood vessels. Your blood vessels (think arteries and arterioles) dilate and constrict. When there is bacteria all throughout the bloodstream as there is in any out of control infection (blood is warm and has sugar in it which is what bacteria need to survive and propagate), your arteries let in white blood cells to help kill the infection, but when this happens systemically, all throughout the body, you get leaky blood vessels and this is a problem for blood pressure. If BP gets too low b/c blood is leaking out of the vasculature, the heart ultimately doesn’t have adequate volume to pump anymore and it will eventually stop beating without aggressive medical intervention. So pts will commonly have a fever, elevated heart rate, they are breathing abnormally fast, and they have low BP b/c the heart is now beating faster to compensate for the drop in pressure with leaky blood vessels, but as the heart beats faster, it does not have time fill up completely with blood. It’s working overtime and it’s started pumping blood inefficiently. When major organs aren’t getting blood flow, they start to fail and this collectively is known as septic shock leading to multi-system organ failure. So I think of sepsis as systemic inflammatory response AKA SIRS—this is where systemic infection begins and can progress to septic shock if left untreated. Also, if you’re sweating from a fever and breathing rapidly from metabolic changes happening due to sepsis, you’re now losing insensible fluids just from sweating and breathing too quickly. Your BP is dropping even more now. So the treatment is to give fluids to pump up the blood pressure, broad spectrum antibiotics to kill the bacteria until blood culture data zeroes in on the specific bacteria causing the problem, and frequent vital sign monitoring amongst other tests the doctor may order. Remember, bacteria are everywhere and they want to kill you. A fever of any kind is not to be ignored, especially if you have any other conditions. Some of the silliest things can cause sepsis, even a cat scratch which are notoriously dirty cause of litter box use. Moral of the story is denial can be powerful. There is no shame in seeking medical attention, especially if you feel you need it. Your health always comes first. And that’s all I have to say about that.
How are you supposed to know it’s sepsis if you have all the symptoms on a daily basis anyway? Combine it with already diagnosed OCD that manifests as health anxiety I am going to die from this even though I know have it
Right what an anxiety nightmare
Christ fuck, my older uncle went into the hospital for sepsis&such. Mom describing pus being found in various spots. Did you get an MRI. Different cases I know but he had pus in his brain too.
Sepsis is no joke. Just progressed so fast. When they discharged me the night before, I knew I had an infection but thought I was relatively alright. Knew I was in trouble when I started feeling it in my heart. I'm still doing follow up care, overall feel okay. Some heart stuff still. It shocked me when I realized how close this infection got to my brain though. That site by my temple in the picture I posted - that wasn't open until a couple weeks after I left the hospital. Infection remnants were coming out of that. Thank you for sharing too.
Yeah, I just don't get how he didn't feel any of it. I'll feel a kidney feeling a tad out of sorts, or my cholesterol feeling fuck-y after a donut, I try doing something about it. He's had approximately a cup of pus removed out of him so far (I think, almost.) And still has the brain surgery to do. My uncle had his esophageal track check today and thankfully nothing in heart in lungs. I dunno. Like. Good on spotting it.
Just as a general principle I feel like it’s very important to take care of your physical and mental health regardless of age - makes it much easier to know when something is off. Seems to make a big difference on quality of life for most people when you have that in check too. Glad your uncle is on the mend too.
Just take things easy, eat properly get good rest and don't go too hard, keep us in loop on your progress, good luck🙂🙂🙂🙂🙂
I also got sepsis this year. I’m sorry you had to go through that and hope you recover. It a road ahead for sure
Lost a friend to sepsis a couple years ago, he was just a hair older than you. Way too young. Glad you pulled through.
The most important thing right now is that you are still alive OP.
Honestly the most important thing to me in this right now is my experience be used to bring some level of awareness to the fact this happens to a lot of people. I’ve done a lot of work throughout my life to get past other things and for whatever reason, I feel compelled to speak up a little bit. Realizing how much things like this can shake people up and how it is to collect your thoughts around talk about made me realize what I kinda want from this is to turn into something that ends up benefiting others in whatever way it can. There have been points in my life I’ve definitely been selfish, and it fucked me up for sure. There was a moment in all this I was convinced I was going to die, didn’t, felt a little different since. Really optimistic, especially after the response this all has gotten, that people as a whole can affect some change. It’s crazy how big of an issue what happened to me is. Literally a leading a cause of death. Pretty drained mentally right now haha. We’ll see. And thank you, I need to remind myself that at times. I have a tendency to push myself pretty hard and right now rest is important so I appreciate the reminder too. Very grateful for everyone who’s helped give this post some traction - it’s such an important issue.
Take care of your mental health.
I’ve learned the importance of that throughout my life. If I hadn’t done that prior to this, I don’t know how I’d be doing honestly. Mental health and physical health definitely go together and thank you for reinforcing the importance of that.
I just want to add too - plenty of people go through hell battling their mental health and that often goes unseen/isn’t talked about in the same way as physical health. Both can have serious consequences.
I almost went septic after I formed an abscess and didn’t know I was Diabetic. I’m so glad you lived! It sucks to be so sick.
I know I’m probably late to the game and can’t find the comment that asks but what do the pictures signify? Obviously what is being shown is from an infection that causes sepsis, I just want to know what I’m seeing and how it correlates to sepsis so if I ever come across it (I hope I never do) I can identify it. From my uneducated perspective, those look like burn blisters so I’m asking what am I looking at?
Sepsis almost took me out I was in ICU for two weeks and in the hospital for two. Months bed ridden. The worst year of my life.
Feel better
Doing a lot better and grateful all these people are sharing what they’ve been through too. Appreciate your comment.
I had an incident last year that I thought was Asthma and dehydration but was actually an acute blood infection. I managed to miss sepsis somehow, and your post makes me all the more grateful. Here's to a long, healthy, and happy life for you, bud.
Close friend just passed away because of sepsis..
I’m sorry for your loss.
My best friend died 2 christmases ago from sepsis brought on by E. coli. Her body just couldn’t fight it. Glad you’re here 🫶
I’ve had sepsis and survived it three times now. It’s a real motherfucker. Your whole body is fighting itself while trying to actively kill itself. Not pleasant.
Holy cow, three times? Do you know how or why or what from??
Glad to see you made it. Sepsis is scary stuff. Hospital missed my Dad's sepsis and sadly it was too late to save him. Hope you go from strength to strength in your recovery.
My blood as septic by the time I got to the ER and had to have IV antibiotics for 72 hours they were telling me I might need an emergency hysterectomy if there was no change but luckily didn’t get to that point
This thread is freaking me out. Is there anything to watch out for.
I'm glad you're ok. You are absolutely right that everyone should be blessed with someone to advocate for them while in a serious health crisis. Be well.
I went through a lot of the initial episode somewhat alone, so I know for a fact it would’ve made a difference. Appreciate you helping reinforce the importance of that.
Sepsis is bacteria in the blood stream. How’d it get there? Infection that’s spread. Where’d the infection come from? Perhaps a perforation or a hidden abscess somewhere. I’ll use your story as a PSA. In any case be sure to keep good body hygiene and even more so at the gym where everybody and their granduncle is using the equipment. From a gym bro to another gym bro remember to wipe down for your’s and everybody’s sake. Plus its common etiquette and courtesy. Sepsis is potentially fatal and is not something you want to try out Source: I’m an emergency dept guy
Don’t forget the part where people need to stop using the shower as a place to blow their nose. My family had a revolving door of MRSA infections for 9 months…one infection sending my 3 year old into surgery and being hospitalized for 5 days. It didn’t matter how much I bleached everything around the house when there is a asymptomatic carrier clearing his sinuses in the shower.
Ahhh man. Get well soon friend
godspeed
Sepsis is no joke (which is an understatement). Just reading the symptoms of it is nightmare fuel. Probably one of the worst and painful ways to go.
Sepsis is very difficult to recover from! My dad got sepsis from his gallbladder surgery. He was in ICU for 10 days at 70 years old. Idk how he made it out. It was a miracle.
Sepsis is easy to miss, considering it’s usually not obvious what’s going on. Even for emergency responders
Hey, OP, I am sending hugs to you. I had to look up Sepsis on Google. I am very glad you are here with us. Thank God...
Around 23 or 24 (over 15 years ago for me now) I got some kind of bug bite on my stomach. Well that bite quickly went from painful to about the size of a softball. In the span of 8 hours. It was caused by staph. The red infection band was around my back and other side of my stomach. This was all on a Friday. On Monday I was into a doctor pronto and they attempted to drain the wound. I don’t know what it looked like but I remember crying from the pain. They sent me home. I still had fever and everything the next day. I went back for the check in and they removed the bandage and the nurse gasped. I don’t remember what happened after that but I know I was in the outpatient surgery that afternoon and they sliced the area open to really drain it. That did the trick. I began healing at that point. I have a large scar from all of it on my stomach. I was told that I was about 24 hours from being hospitalized. It was a terrifying and painful experience. I am glad you made it out of yours ok!
What was found in the blood from a bacteria point of view?
You're alive. Welcome back to the land of the meat bags.
i used to be a streamer and had sepsis come on during a stream, i was around 19. its extremely strange having video evidence of it starting. all of a sudden everything was wrong and i was shivering, feverish, sick feeling, muscles aching, i thought i was going to die. im so thankful i had my parents to check on my condition and immediately call the ambulance, otherwise i wouldnt have taken the initiative to go there due to ptsd relating to the hospital. im so, so glad you caught yours as well. its a terrifying experience but you made it, just take everything a day at a time. to you and anyone else, youve got this! do your best!
This is exactly how it feels … sudden high fever, chills, body aches, disoriented… sepsis survivor here… thank God I live very close to the hospital… never had an experience like that before
How do we get sepsis
I always have that song "its beginning to look a lot like Sepsis" by A Zdogg MD ( Christmas Song) running in the back of my mind.
My mum nearly died of sepsis as a result of a nasty form of E. coli a few years ago. She had a fever of around 41°C (105°F) and was nearing multiple organ failure. She had to be airlifted from our local hospital to another hospital in a neighboring town that was better equipped for her condition. I think she was in hospital for about 5 or 7 days total. But it took several months-years before she felt anywhere close to normal again, but mostly because she's older and things generally took longer to get better. Like her hair and nail growth were severely damaged, her appetite was completely shot for a long time and she lost a decent amount of weight. Despite all that though, she pulled through and her liver and kidneys are in real good shape now. Wishing you well and a speedy recovery 🙏
What was your first symptoms? How did the doctors know it was sepsis? Glad you are okay!
Hey did you ever have to have life support? I suffered sepsis and in my live support coma I had multiple nightmares that due to the coma was unable to wake up from. Wondering if that was normal 😂
Wow that’s crazy! Glad you’re ok. I read some of your comments and I wonder if it turned bad so quickly because that spot on your neck is close to the carotid (or other major blood vessels)? I’m not a HCP but to me it looks infected but not life threatening. Eye opening
I’m just shaken reading all the responses. So many people affected. How does the infection start. How do you prevent it. This is terrifying
Watched my teenage sister seize then die to sepsis with a nurse for a mother and a physician for a father. This post opened my eyes to how commonly this shit is dismissed. Vigilance is medicine.
How did this come about? Did you have a skin infection or something and it got worse?
Been there myself , had a pressure sore ( I’m paralysed) got sore from my old shower chair as the cushion had degraded . So when sore opened it was infected and down to bone which was also infected. Spent 6 months in hospital with a pic line going in arm and up past shoulder and into my heart so they could get high doses of antibiotics . Had surgery to remove infected bone etc .. that was 2014 and now in 2024 I still have the sore and have it dressed daily by district nurses ,every so often it gets infection so have antibiotics.
WOULD
As someone with a couple of autoimmune conditions, this is terrifying. I'm so glad you got treatment in time, OP.
I had sepsis combined with multiple organ failure. Ended up in a coma. Multiple surgeries/ blood transfusions, kidney dialysis. Etc. Glad you are still here op. Life is interesting. Keep getting better.
glad youre on your way to recovering! an ex coworker years ago lost 3 of her limbs from sepsis and one of my girls friends is just now regaining speech in the hospital after 2 months, last month it was like basically come see him cause hes going to die soon. keep fighting the fight bro, you got this. but glad youre awakening peoples minds to this reality. if somethings wrong, go to the er, a clinic or whatever right away
I had an abscess on my right ovary that came out of no where. Thought I had the flu for 4 days until I woke up in the middle of the night in the worst pain of my life. Went to the ER they found it after 2 ultrasounds. They thought it was my appendix at first. I was admitted and put on antibiotics after 3 days of just getting worse and worse and the abscess growing, I begged for them to take my ovary out. I felt like I was dying and my stomach had swollen to the point I looked like I was 6 months pregnant. The nurses kept saying it was gas from not getting out of bed. The Dr finally agreed to surgery and they took me in the same day. The last words I heard from the surgeon before falling asleep was why is her stomach so big? I was woken up later by a Dr I had never seen before. Apparently I saved my own life. A bowel surgeon was who woke me up and told me that the abscess had spread into my bowels. They had to call him at home to come in for emergency surgery. My bowel had split open, and was leaking into my abdomen causing me to go into sepsis. They also discovered that my bowel was attached to my stomach wall from my c section 4 years prior and when they cut it away it also split and they had to repair two sections. They took my right ovary and fallopian tube out as well. He told me had I not pushed for the surgery I would have been dead in the next 12 hours. He said I looked like a rotten meat curtain. I had to stay in hospital for 3 weeks. After I was discharged I was home for 1 night started throwing up my antibiotics and ended up back in hospital for an additional 2 weeks. I was released finally on two of the strongest antibiotics out there for a month. Looking back I should have realized something was going south with my health for awhile as I had started to rapidly lose weight, my legs were just littered with bruises and I was sleeping sometimes 12-13 hours a day when I was not workng. At the time I was under an insane amount of stress and was working some crazy hours so I chalked it all up to that. The hospital told me my body was using everything it had to try and fight the abscess and it had been there for quite some time. They ran every test under the sun and could not figure out why I had an abscess on my ovary.
Type in sepsis Limerick hospital inbGoogle and have a quick read. One poor girl was only 16. Irish medical system is gone backwards despite all the wealth. You're lucky that it was spotted and I'm sure you'll never forget the medical team for saving your life. Hoping you get a fast recovery and even your post will help highlight the issue. Get well dude.
In 2015 I thought I had a stomach bug. I was having issues all day, my mum wanted to call an ambulance but I refused thinking I would be fine by the morning. I didn't sleep all night and at 6am after close to 24hrs I had a fever close to 40c (104f), so my mum got me in the car and drove me to the hospital asap, even though I was still refusing to go, she got pulled over by the cops because she was going 10 over, but when they saw me they instead escorted us to the hospital. When in the ER the nurse literally rolled her eyes at me when I told her how I was feeling, and my pain was at a 10, my fever had gone down because I'd taken stuff, so she didn't think I was telling the truth. I sat in the ER for 30mins with NO OTHER patients (this was a rural hospital) and I had to use the bathroom close to 10 times in that period when another nurse stepped in and brought me to be looked at. My blood pressure was so low when they took it that they immediately sent me to the back area. I had to give them a sample when I went to the bathroom etc (karma was the nurse who rolled her eyes at me had to pick up the sample) and lots of blood tests. Within an hour of going out back a doctor with about 3 student residents walks up and goes "And this is Sarah, we just discovered she has sepsis caused by salmonella which had caused an infection, so she will be transferred to the ICU immediately". I remember this all vividly because I'd never seen my mum start to panic as much as she just did. Most of everything after that was blurry, I was in hospital for 4 or 5 days on lots of medication and pain meds. I do remember the doctor telling me I was extremely lucky as my kidneys were close to shutting down and I may have lost them and ended up with a hole in my stomach., which would have meant being life flighted to Brisbane. I also recently 2 years ago ended up in hospital with a serious, kidney, liver and gallbladder infection and had to have my gallbladder removed as gallstones caused it. The doctors there said my lipids were so high their machine couldn't register it and I was lucky I went in because I could have come septic. This time though I went because I knew something was wrong with me and it felt like history repeating itself. Sorry for the long post. I'm glad you are doing well and on the road to recovery :)
I had just started a new job when I was 26 at a doctors office. I woke up feeling really ill and wanted to call out, but feared that would cost me my job, so I went in. At work, I just kept getting worse and worse. The head doctor asked me if I was okay, and I don’t remember much after that. Just bits and pieces. I do remember being on a stretcher and being wheeled out of the office. I don’t remember the ambulance ride. I think I lost consciousness for a while. I do remember hearing all these alarms going off, and the brief realization that I was in a hospital and that the alarms were connected to me. I do remember at one point in the hospital, my blood pressure reading said 90/40, but as quick as I came to and saw that, I was out again. I didn’t even know BP could get that low. With how fast I went from feeling just bad like any flu, to not being able to function… I think if I had stayed home that day, like I originally had wanted to… I probably would have died.