Wendy Bjerke

It all started on Friday July 19th I was in the middle of my 10-hour shift and was 3/4 of the way through my shift when I began to feel light headed and just not right. I thought to myself I must be coming down with a cold/viral bug or just tired form night shift work. I ended my shift and still just didn’t feel right, little more tired than usual and light headed, so I retreated to the couch to rest while my 3-year-old son played in the same room.

At 3:00am the next morning I woke up with excruciating pain on the left side of my pelvis, I got up to use the restroom and could barely walk due to the pain. My husband woke up to me stumbling around and asked me why I was walking with a limp. I explained to him what I was feeling and he urged me to go to the ER, I was apprehensive however a few hours later I went. We waited for two hours to get called back and then things started moving pretty quickly. At this point after the initial exam, ultrasound, CT scan and diagnosis of a probable abdominal abscess, I was started on antibiotics and a surgeon was consulted.

I was in and out of conscious at this point but I vaguely remember my husband practically screaming at me to wake up and open my eyes and to look at him. I was opening my eyes as wide as I could but I couldn’t see anything and didn’t follow the command to turn and look at him. He was freaked out at this point, as I was soon to be wheeled off to surgery and I was in pretty bad shape. The rest of the story is from my husband, as I don’t remember the rest of the day.

The doctors were telling my husband I was deteriorating and needed to go to surgery now. During surgery they found that I had a tubo-ovarian abscess, possibly due to an endometrioma on my left ovary and having an IUD placed 10 days prior, which had led to sepsis. After surgery it was around 1:00pm, I slept for the most part but do remember my sister had come to visit around 5:00pm.

I mostly slept through the rest of the day until around 11:00pm, apparently my blood pressure machine kept alarming, so my husband went to get a nurse to shut it off. The blood pressure machine was alarming because it was reading a dangerously low blood pressure on me. A Code was then called on me, and my husband was then ushered out. He says he saw the code cart with the shock paddles on it being brought into the room and again. He began to panic ,thinking he was never going to see me alive again.

All I can remember is the intense pain in my left arm from the blood pressure cuff but I couldn’t seem to speak any words to tell anyone it hurt so bad. They had blood pressure cuffs on both arms but couldn’t get a blood pressure reading. I went from being septic to being in septic shock. I was started on vasopressors to bring my blood pressure up, and a huge amount of IV fluids was pushed into me. Once I was stable enough to be moved I was admitted to ICU.

I remember them attempting to do chest x-rays and my chest, back and abdomen hurt so bad I could barely sit up for them to put the film board behind my back. An ultrasound of the abdomen was also done, and a lot of inflammation and air was found in the colon and my abdomen, thus a nasogastric tube was put in place to release the air.

Three days later I was moved out of ICU to a regular room. My husband says he has never seen so many IV fluids, antibiotics, and other medications hooked up to one person at a given time. I had all kinds of different medicines going in the IV as well as oral medications. Unfortunately because of the large amounts of fluids that I had been given during the code, and my history of asthma I ended up with fluid collection of both sides of my pleural space causing a lot of chest and back pain. I was given Lasix without any improvement, so I then had to have the fluid removed from both sides via the interventional radiologists. I then began my physical therapy to regain the ability to walk again, and my lung exercises to keep my O2 sats up without the help of oxygen.

After 11 days in the hospital, I was discharged home to finish my recovery that took roughly 2 months. I give huge thanks to every doctor I saw during this traumatic illness. I was told by three different doctors how severely ill I was and that had I waited a few hours longer I would not be here today.

The doctors and nurses at the hospital knew exactly what to do and are the reason I am here telling my story today. It scares me to think that had I refused to go to the ER and instead gone to urgent care or just waited it out I would not be here today. I work in the medical field, Pathology, and unfortunately did not know a lot about sepsis as it seems many people don’t.