Ashley Taylor
Just recently I talked to a nurse who told me I could have PTSD from sepsis. (Sepsis and PTSD) It made complete sense when I read the page about post sepsis syndrome. Ok I am 25 and I had sepsis. Since it was fungus in my blood they called it fungemia. (Sepsis and Fungal Infections)
The first time I went into shock was minutes before being put under for a port replacement. I have gastroparesis severely and use a port for daily TPN, hydration, and medicine. I also have a J tube for medicine. On the operating table I began to feel very very bad. It started hitting me in pre op. I’ve never felt so sick. I then told a nurse helping others cover me for the surgery that I felt weird and that I felt like I was having convulsions every time I moved my head. Then he asked if it had started in the room or in pre op. It happened in pre op, just before getting wheeled to the operating room. He said ok good and got the blanket I asked for.
Pretty soon, a few minutes later, I was crying hysterically due to how cold I was and couldn’t stop shivering. I had five blankets on. I felt like I was dying..right there on the table. I woke up in post op with a 103 degree fever and a heart rate of 190. I felt so bad and I don’t remember much, just when my friend came because the procedure was scheduled for outpatient and she had been my ride. She went home without me that night and I went to a room.
My entire body ached and all I could do was cry out continuously in distress. Nothing showed what was wrong with me in my labs so after a week of IV antibiotics in the heart and lung center wing, I went home. Back on TPN and medicine via port. Then less than one month later, I was tired one morning and didn’t know what it was but figured it was a cold or something coming on. Later that evening, I was reading and began to shiver uncontrollably. Two hours later I came out of my unconscious state in an ever so awful delirium and could not gain enough energy to stand up. I was so confused. I was not thinking clearly and called my friend to pick me up for the ER.
While waiting I called my friend so that I would stay conscious until I got in the car. I somehow made it up alone and walked to the front porch. A friend my dad’s age had to pick me up to get in the car and once we got downtown, I was dying, quickly. The pain and the dehydration were so so awful. A good friend stayed by my side the whole time and did everything I asked. She would stand bedside for ten to thirty minutes at a time and wet my mouth with the oral sponges because I can’t take anything by mouth due to delayed gastric emptying. My blood pressure dropped to 50/something and I heard the nurse frantically speaking to the doctor on the phone that she was giving me open fluids (6 bags total that night), and I wasn’t responding. Only thing I could do was make what I thought were words but sounded more like grunts and cries.
My blood pressure being so low, made me unable to move any part of my body. The coldness of my limbs told me my body was trying to save my organs and that convinced me that this was way worse than bad. Happily my bp rose to the 80s and I went to a room the next morning, no ICU. I had been in the ER when I was supposed to be in the ICU. The beds were full. After 11 days on IV antibiotics and the removal of my infected port, I relapsed twice in one and a half months. Back on iv antibiotics.
Two months and 19 days I was bedridden in the hospital. Now I’ve had chronic UTI infections and urine cultures growing deadly bacteria. It’s only a matter of time until I believe I’ll be back at death’s door…but doctors and nurses won’t put me on IV antibiotics and I’ve been on 5 via j tube since December, and it’s March and they have done nothing. It always comes back worse.
I agree with the post I read earlier about fearing that every little problem is a manifestation of a reemerging septic infection. I pray for all those who have dealt with it. It’s the scariest, most agonizing experience you’ll ever go through. The fact that I survived just makes me scared that I may not one day. It also creates in me a love for Jehovah, the only true God, that is deeper and more important than ever. He promises to rid my life of illness one day soon, and everyone else’s too (Isaiah 33:24). That is my story, I hope it’s my first and last of having sepsis.
