Gloryann Leibold

Survivor

I am a 48-year-old mother of three young adult children and a lucky gramma to 3 young grandchildren. My oldest son and my youngest daughter, and her two children still live with me. I was blessed with two new grandchildren last October and November from my two daughters – a little girl and a little boy, so they were only 4 months and 2 months old when my story with sepsis began. Also my other granddaughter who lives with me is 5-years-old. Both my daughters had just completed 4-year-university degrees and both had just had new babies. I got to participate in both births.

My middle daughter does not get to spend as much time with me since she is no longer at home so I had planned a trip to take her and my other granddaughter ,who is 5, and her little girl who was 4 months to Walt Disney World.

The week before we were to leave, I started feeling ill. I was seeing a doctor who was treating me for an infection in my ring finger. He had me on PIC line antibiotics and had just changed it to a pill. I had asked him if there were any complications I should watch for and he had told me of some superbug and the symptoms.

So when I started feeling ill, I called his office repeatedly and left messages. My youngest daughter seemed to know something was wrong and this was no typical illness or flu. She had tried to get me to go to the hospital and had called my middle daughter to come over and try to take me. It was while she was there that the contagious disease doctor called back and informed me that they felt I only had a flu and I should keep taking the medications, and they would check in with me on Monday. This was Friday night…and we were to leave for Disney on Tuesday.

Looking back I do not remember much of that week and I am not sure if it was because of the sepsis or all the stuff and the coma I ended up in. I am guessing that I was very much already septic.

My daughter heard the conversation so she informed my other daughter to leave me alone I just had the flu. Saturday night arrived and I am lucky enough that I came out of my fog long enough to get up at 2 am and tell someone to call a ambulance. That’s the last thing I truly remember…

I woke up 3 weeks later to find out that I had indeed had the superbug that the doctor had told me about and that they had to operate and take out part of my bowel. I had also gone septic…causing all my organs to shut down. They had to hit my heart twice with a needle to get it started and my kidneys were still not working properly.

By the time I had reached the hospital it took them two more days to realize what was wrong with me and the only reason they finally did was because someone had seen my contagious disease doctor in the hall and got him to come over to look at me. They had been running tests and they knew something was up but didn’t know what it was yet.

My heart rate was over the roof and my blood pressure was near nil. By the time the contagious disease doctor got involved, I had started to swell up and my chest and my breathing were gaspy. Four doctors could not decide what to do and one doctor told my mother that by the time they decide what to do your daughter is going to be dead.

Because of my vital signs, it was risky to operate but in the end they had no choice and they took a chance. They told my family the next 5 hours after the operation were vital and if I made it through that I would probably be okay.

Well exactly 5 and a half hours later, the hospital called my family to tell them I had internal bleeding and they had to go back in to figure out where it was coming from. To have two operations so close together is hard on a body especially one that is already not working properly. They decided because of the sepsis and all the problems my organs were having, to put me into a coma and on life support. I spent the next 2 weeks in a coma and when I finally woke up I had no memory of any of it nor did I know where I was at. I couldn’t talk because of all the tubes in my throat and there was some sort of cage over my face area.

It was 2 days before I found out where I was and what exactly had happened to me. I was so swollen from fluids that I could not even roll over, forget walk. It would be another 4 weeks before I found out I had sepsis. Never did a doctor tell my family that I had sepsis. I only found out after I was reading on the Internet and then straight out asked the doctor what all had happened and if I had sepsis.

Because of my organs shutting down and the swelling I figured I must have had sepsis from what I was reading.

This particular doctor had apologized to my family while I was in a coma and took responsibility for what had happened to me. When I came out of the coma he also apologized to me. If his office had of looked at me or had sent me for tests when I had called, I might not have gotten so sick. As it was I was lucky enough that I came out of the septic fog long enough to call an ambulance or I would have died at home.

My children only have me in their lives, their father is not a participant, so the whole ordeal was very scary for them and my family. It took me a month to learn to walk again because of all the swelling from fluids. Now I have some kidney disease going on which is probably from all the toxins and my organs shutting down. Only time will tell if it is going to get worse.

I am counting my blessings that I lived through this horror. I have to go back in for one more operation for them to fix my bowel in a month and then hopefully I can try to get my body back to some state of better health. I feel the effects of being this sick and I see different symptoms still from it.

I was told that I begged everyone for ice and water and that I rolled around in pain. So it’s a good thing that I do not remember most of it. This is a horrid disease that comes on so fast and is so deadly.

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