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Patients & Family

Here you can find resources to help you or a loved one understand sepsis.

We are constantly adding new information, so please come back again to see what new features are available.

Diagnosed with Sepsis

You’re not alone

For anyone recently diagnosed with sepsis, this is the place to start. We cover the basics.

What Does it Mean

Faces of Sepsis

You’re not alone

Read stories from sepsis survivors and from people who have lost someone they love to sepsis. More than 1,000 stories cover the many types of infections that can cause sepsis, and the outcomes.

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Steph Wasson

Survivor

It’s extremely difficult to shortly summarize the most traumatic 6 months of my life, but here it goes. 2015 was supposed to be the best year of my life. And it started out that way at first. I was a young, healthy, 26-year-old ICU nurse working in a level 1 trauma center. I had just gotten married that summer, started my first semester of nurse practitioner school in the fall, and found out I was pregnant shortly after that. Little did I know that the year would end with me fighting for my life. After two weeks of complications, it …

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Christopher L.

Survivor, Survivor

What started as a blackhead turned into an extremely painful chest cavity abscess the size of half a baseball! I thought I was on the mend after my Urgent Care visit to get the sucker removed. Little did I know, this would be the start of a very painful and scary experience – in the middle of a pandemic! 24 hours later, I was in so much pain and muffling my tears as I sought help from an advice nurse. By the time I got to the ER, I had a temperature of 102.9F and a team of doctors surrounding …

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Ellie S.

Survivor, Survivor, Survivor

I was approaching the end of my senior year of high school, and one day I felt pain in my back and in my sides. I brushed it off for days, as I’ve always been very active and was constantly pulling/straining muscles. Two days later, I developed a low-grade fever. Thank goodness both of my parents are nurses, as they realized I was starting to have UTI symptoms. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) They took me to the doctor who diagnosed me with a kidney infection and immediately got me started on antibiotics. Fast forward three days: my fever was …

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Margarita Luna

Survivor, Survivor, Survivor, Survivor

Sepsis is very dangerous. I was real sick had fever, chills, headache, shortness of breath. I had got it from not taking care of urinary infections I had may be a year ago. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) It was the worst feeling ever I felt, no energy, no life, crying, headaches, fever. I had it for a bout 5 months before I realized I had it. I didn’t know what it was. The pain was so severe nothing would take this pain away until I couldn’t take it. An ambulance came to my mom’s house and took me to …

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Chasity Frantz

Survivor, Survivor, Survivor, Survivor, Survivor

I got severe septic shock while I was 6 months pregnant with my son. (Sepsis and Pregnancy & Childbirth) I never heard of it before it changed my life forever. I was having trouble with an UTI, that led me to the hospital a month before. (Sepsis and UTIs) I was in so much pain that I was throwing up, I got a shot of penicillin and another round of antibiotics and sent home. Then one day at work I felt like I had the flu, went home. My husband made me go to the walk-in. They said I had …

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Faces of Sepsis
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Military & Veterans

Many of today’s life saving medical and surgical procedures were first discovered or refined by the military.

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Mental Health

Sepsis survivors and family members of people who have had sepsis may find themselves experiencing emotional and psychological issues that can make it difficult to move forward.

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It’s About Time™

It’s About TIME™ is a national initiative to raise awareness of sepsis and the urgent need to seek treatment when symptoms are recognized.

Early detection is the best hope to survive and limit disabilities when sepsis is present.
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Erin’s Campaign for Kids

IN MEMORY OF ERIN BUG FLATLEY | 1978 – 2002

Erin’s Campaign for Kids aims to combat the high incidence and mortality rates of sepsis among children. The campaign creates awards and training programs for nurses and other health professionals to help identify and treat a disease that, by conservative estimates, causes over 18 child deaths per day or 6,800 child deaths in the United States every year, more than pediatric cancers.

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