Julia Pinsonneault

My illness was in early October 2013. I was really physically fit. I walked everywhere and never took the elevator. On a Thursday, after walking about a mile to my work place, I started having severe pain in my gut. One of my colleagues sent me to the emergency department, where I spent about 4 agonizing hours in the waiting room, and then spent the night in the hospital, finally on some pain medication. I had kidney stones for the first time. (Sepsis and Kidney Stones)

While in the ER, I became so cold that I couldn’t stop shivering. They covered me heated blankets and decided that I must have had a weird drug reaction. The following afternoon I was discharged, armed with strong pain meds, antinausea meds, a “hat” with a screen to pee in, and an oral antibiotic, to wait for the stones to pass.

While I was in the hospital I got really nauseous and could not keep any food down. That continued after I went home, so I just drank water for the next 36 hours and stayed in bed. I was too sick to even get to my computer to email people, so I sent text messages to my friends from bed. I did get up occasionally to pee in the hat, checking for kidney stones. Not very much came out, though. I was in no pain because of the pain medication.

On Saturday morning I started to have what I thought was an asthma attack. My albuterol inhaler seemed to work fine so I wasn’t that concerned. By Saturday night I was using my inhaler every hour or more often. I decided I should go back to the hospital in the morning and get a stronger breathing treatment. Sunday morning my husband had independently decided that I needed to go back to the hospital because I seemed really sick. I don’t think he even knew about the asthma thing. I moved very slowly, choosing carefully what I was wearing and bringing to the ER. It irritated my husband, who was in much more of a hurry than I was. When we got to the hospital I was very upbeat about the fact that when you have asthma you don’t have to wait. They saw me immediately and then everything goes fuzzy.

I woke up on Tuesday in the ICU when they removed my ventilator tube. I had no I idea where I was or why I was there. I was under the delusion that I was at the hospital on a collaboration to collect DNA from Ohio farmers. I had a catheter, a rectal tube, an IV, and who knows what else. I alternated between my delusion and the reality that I was in the hospital as a patient. I was surprised when people I knew to be out of town kept showing up to visit me. I remember thinking I was at a party and was the center of attention for some reason. When the nurses stuck me with a needle I figured that they were just taking my blood to make DNA as one of the controls for the “Farmer study.” My asthma was still pretty bad though. I kept asking for more albuterol. I asked my nurses why they weren’t giving me prednisone. That’s what they gave me when I was hospitalized once for asthma. No one really answered that question. They mumbled something about prednisone not being used to treat my condition.

On Wednesday they brought in a C-PAP machine, the one they give people with sleep apnea and kept putting it on my face. At first it was OK. I don’t think it was helping my asthma very much. Then it became hell. I kept taking it off after a few minutes because I couldn’t stand it. I remember one of the nurses screaming at me in frustration when I kept pulling off the C-PAP machine.

I woke up Thursday morning unable to say anything. A nurse was standing by when I opened my eyes and apologized profusely. I was back on the ventilator. This time though, I was fully conscious. My husband explained to me why I was in the hospital: that I was in the ICU, that I had had septic shock, that they had pumped 13 liters of fluid into my blood stream to keep my heart beating, and I still had the kidney stones. The kidney stones were too big to pass and had totally blocked me and were now held in place by a stent. Apparently I had an undiagnosed UTI that passed into my blood when I was blocked. (Sepsis and UTI) I was most likely already septic when they sent me home from the hospital the first time. My husband also told me that I never had asthma. I had respiratory insufficiency due to sepsis. I could not speak but I could write things down. They gave me back my cell phone, a charger and my Kindle. I could check my email and send text messages to people. By then I felt that the crisis was over but my family was still very worried. My mother-in-law was in tears.

They kept me on the ventilator until Saturday morning. I had to remain in the ICU for a full 24 hours after they removed the ventilator. They placed a PICC line in my right arm, which I would need for a 14-day course of IV antibiotics at home. The nurses immediately began to use it as soon as it was OK’d. My IV lines were drying up and there really weren’t very many places to put anything new. I had bruises and scabs everywhere, including on my neck. A physical therapist had me out of bed and sitting in a chair. The next morning the doctors examined me thoroughly and gave the OK to transfer me to the main hospital.

I was really shocked at how weak I was. Just 10 days earlier I had been so strong! They say that is why I recovered so quickly, or maybe why I survived at all. I was discharged from the hospital a full 2 weeks after my initial trip to the ER, once I could demonstrate I was capable of walking up a flight of stairs. I had to wait until Halloween before my kidney stones were surgically removed. Over all, I missed 6 weeks of work.

Now a full two years later, I feel really lucky. I still have some lingering issues. One is a hyper-awareness and somewhat irrational fear of symptoms and risk of sepsis- both in myself and other people. The other annoyance is a case of thrush that won’t go way. The changing season is a powerful reminder of my ordeal. I was struck down at an incredibly busy, beautiful time of year. Telling my story here seems like a good way to mark the occasion.