Herb W. Morgan

In May of 2012 I’d never heard the word “sepsis”. Now, I am unfortunately all too familiar with the term. I am one of the lucky ones who not only survived its brutal havoc but the permanent damage it left with me could be considered mild by comparison to others.

On Memorial Day weekend 2012, I took my teenage son to a golf course. We planned to practice for a spell and then play nine holes. Within minutes of arriving at the driving range I noticed I felt slightly lethargic. The feeling was similar to how I felt the day after a fraternity part in college. (Was I over-served last night?) It couldn’t be; I’d only had a single glass of wine with dinner. Then I noticed I could not grip a golf club. I was unable to wrap either hand around the golf shaft. We decided to return home where I napped the rest of the afternoon in preparation for a friend’s 50th birthday party that evening.

By the time Mary and I were ready to leave that evening, my lethargy had morphed to nausea, headache and chills. We made it to the birthday celebration but my condition worsened. Friends noticed I was not my usual gregarious self. I couldn’t eat a thing and I was certain I felt a fever coming on. We made a quick exit from the party. We returned home and I went to bed in an attempt to sleep off what I now had self-diagnosed as the flu.

The next day was Memorial Day and my conditions intensified. I vacillated between feeling hot and feeling chilled. I was nauseous and couldn’t eat. Fortunately, I had my annual physical scheduled with my internist the next day at 3 o’clock.

On Tuesday after Memorial Day I awoke from a tumultuous sleep. Not having eaten in a few days and guessing I was dehydrated, I decided not to wait until my 3 pm internist appointment. I knew his schedule and rushed to his office where I caught him coming off the elevator at about 8 AM. “Herb you look like hell. Aren’t you coming in this afternoon for a physical?” he quipped. Naturally the good doctor took me right away but he could find nothing wrong. He sent me downstairs to the lab for blood-work promising to call at 6 pm that night with results. I went home and waited. At six o’clock the doctor called to tell me that nothing was abnormal with my blood test. He figured I was dehydrated and suggested sipping Gatorade and taking a few Tylenol. I was instructed to call the next morning if I hadn’t improved.

Wednesday morning rolls around and I’m feeling like I hadn’t slept or eaten in days. (I hadn’t) My wife called the doctor who directed us to the local urgent care center. He was going to call ahead to notify them that I was coming in. I grabbed a pair of sweats, an extra T-shirt and my I-Pad. I figured I could work from there but be in the office that afternoon. By the time I arrived at the urgent care (attached to the hospital) I was becoming distant. Talking, standing, walking all became labored and difficult. It was definitely more noticeable to others than to me. Mary had to check me in as I was unable to focus on simple admissions questions and forms. Within 20 minutes of my arrival, the hospital had declared “Code Blue”. I thought, “Some poor soul is pretty darn sick”. What I didn’t know as that poor sole was me.

All of this became troubling because we had an upcoming family trip to Thailand to celebrate our son’s high school graduation. In fact just two weeks earlier, I had been vaccinated with among other things the Measles, Mumps & Rubella vaccine. (MMR) Also, his high school graduation was in a few days and we didn’t want anyone in the family to be sick with flu for that.

Little did I know!

My next memory is waking up in a hospital bed covered in “gear”. Actually I woke up during the procedure called extubation. This is the final step in liberating a patient from mechanical ventilation. I had PICC (peripherally inserted central catheters) lines in my groin, armpits, and arms. My priest was there too. What is going on? I couldn’t figure it out. Slowly some grogginess wore off but I could not move or communicate for some time. To be sure I was hallucinating. Sometimes the hallucinations were fun. At one point the area directly in front of me was filled with “flying artichokes” as in a child’s video game. I playfully swatted them out of the air. Other times the hallucinations were not as pleasant. Were the hallucinations caused by sepsis or the plethora of drugs they were treating me with?

I had missed my son’s high school graduation and the family trip to Thailand. Slowly I was coming around and for the first time a doctor uttered the word “sepsis”. Now they needed me to focus on everything I had done in the past month. Every restaurant I had eaten at, where I had been, what my flight numbers were, what hotels I stayed at. Thanks to credit card records, I was able to easily re-create my last month of business travel.

Finding nothing in my other records, the infectious disease doctors began focusing on the MMR vaccine I had received two weeks prior as the probable cause of my sepsis. I had completely forgotten about the vaccine. Then I was told people who received MMR vaccines in the late 1960s as I had, received a different formula than the vaccine I had gotten two weeks prior to my sepsis. Perhaps the two conflicted they opined.

After two weeks in the hospital including one week in a medically induced coma (intubated) I was released. I had lost 25 pounds. I was so physically weekend I could not lift a gallon of milk. I was too weak to go upstairs to my bedroom. I slept most of the day. I moved only with assistance of a walker and I showered in a lawn chair. But there was one amazing side effect. I could see perfectly. I put on my glasses and everything was blurred. I went to an eye doctor who told me I had 20/20 vision. Had sepsis cured my vision?

No, sadly it had not.

The dramatic loss in blood pressure had caused my optic nerve to swell. Eventually the swelling went down and my normally impaired vision returned. Unfortunately for me the vision in my left eye has become permanently curtailed. Call me lucky.

The next months of recovery were slow. Particularly disturbing during this period was worries about my cardiac health. I had to take my pulse and blood pressure readings daily and record them in a journal for my cardiologist. At one point he stated, “Herb you need to accept that you are going to be a cardiac patient for a long, long time”. Fortunately, he was mistaken.

I’m now six months out from my ordeal. The heart rate gyrations are far less frequent now. My physical strength has returned and I am back to my old exercise routine. The vision loss is permanent but I know many other sepsis victims have suffered a fate far worse than mine.

Many have asked me to suspend my belief in science and speak out against vaccinations. I can’t do that; the medical evidence supporting vaccine benefits is overwhelming. I’m very grateful to the staff at Scripps Green Hospital in San Diego, my wife, family and friends. Without their efforts my fate may not have been what it is.