Chris Turner

On August 1st of 2014, I went into my local hospital to have a small bump looked at that was near my armpit. I was told that I had a plugged sweat gland. The doctors said they would slice it, pack it and bandage it. So I said sure. They did the simple procedure and I went back home. Four hours later I was awoken out of a sleep to find I started shaking uncontrollably and I felt like I was freezing cold. So my wife drove me back to the ER. Upon arrival, the doctors had no idea what was going on. (I have to add our local hospital is not all up-to-date on modern medicine.)

They ordered a medi-chopper to fly me out to a large hospital in the city. They intubated me and flew me out. When I arrived at the city hospital, they did multiple tests on me and found out I was in septic shock. They put about 19 things into my body, various fluids, monitors, IVs, ect., ect. One of the iv bags contained cloxacillin (which later we found I was allergic to). I was on cloxacillin for about 5 days. This shut down my kidneys for about 32 days. When they finally took out my breathing tube and woke me up it was about day 6.

When I awoke, I found my wife and mother by my bedside and they proceeded to tell me why I was there. I was on 24-hour dialysis for about 8-10 days. At this point, most of my muscle tone was gone. I was in ICU for a total of 12 days.

From there I went to the 7th floor. My potassium levels skyrocketed out of control. I was in that ward for about 26 hours where I almost died. They quickly rushed me back down to ICU for another 6 days until I was strong enough to go to another ward on the 7th floor.

By this time, I wasn’t able to walk yet, but I could be pushed in a wheel chair. When I was finally moved, I started developing pain in my bones. They did bone scans, x-rays, and various other tests to see why. They found a massive amount of calcium building up in my joints and lungs. Immediately they started hooking bag after bag of fluids to flush out the calcium. The pain was getting worse and worse. They started to administer hydromorphone for the pain. Soon after the bone pain had worked into my joints. They continued to give me dialysis every second day and I was getting hydromorphone shots every 4 hours. Around this time they discovered that I was also type 2 diabetic. So now I am on insulin (very small amounts).

I was getting a bit better and they decided to give me a weekend pass so I got to go home. I caught the ferry on a Friday after dialysis. When I got home I spent about 5 hours there and my pain got so bad I had to go back to my local ER.

I was admitted into the hospital again, where every 4 hours they were giving me 8-12 mg of morphine that relieved my pain for about 20 minutes. The next day I was ambulanced back to the city hospital, where I was put into a short stay renal ward on the 6th floor. They started me back on hydromorphone shots, which helped a bit more for the pain. They ran more and more tests on my to try and find out why I started getting numbness in my fingers, toes, upper left arm and right buttocks. They could not find a cause.

By day 39 of being in the hospital, my creatinine levels started to go down. My kidneys were starting to function. When my levels had lowered down to 300, they decided I was well enough to go home.

I was in the city hospital for 42 days. Going home was a scary thing for me. It was a great thing in theory but to go back was very different. By this time I was able to walk with a walker but I could only go about 100 feet or so.

I was seeing my family doctor every week and going in for blood tests the same amount. They are still trying to find out where my joint pain is coming from. The doctors thought they had figured it out and said I had a certain type of arthritis, and started me on large doses of prednisone. (Sepsis and Autoimmune Diseases) This did nothing for my pain and jumped my glucose levels into the 20s. They also started me on metformin to try and lower my sugar levels. I had a bad reaction to the metformin and that sent me into emergency again. Luckily the reaction only lasted for about 7 hours. They found out the dose they had prescribed me was 4 times the amount a person just starting should have been taking. So now I take 1/2 of a pill instead of 2. Plus I had to triple the amount of insulin I originally started taking. Last week I saw a specialist and he went over my records and found out I was misdiagnosed and I shouldn’t have been taking prednisone at all. So now I am in the process of taking 1 less pill every 4 days to wean off them.

This whole ordeal my family and I have gone through has changed all of our lives. The doctors are unable to treat me due to the fact they have never seen this before. I still have numbness in all those spots. I’m still dealing with large amounts of ongoing pain. (Sepsis and Post-Sepsis Syndrome) Along with all these symptoms, I also now am battling depression. I have not been able to work in over 4 months. I was self-employed with my own drywall company. We have had a great deal of support from friends, family and our community. One thing that does keep me going is the fact that my beautiful wife, who I love dearly and has stuck with me through all this ugliness, still has her husband, and my 2 brave sons, who I am so proud of, still have their father.

This is not the end for me. I will still seek to find answers on how to treat my symptoms. Thanks for reading my story. For those going through this just remember that you are not alone. Talk to your loved ones and let them know how you feel. Don’t keep things inside. To get better, you have to share.