Cindi Bender

On Dec. 13th, I went to my primary doctor with a complaint of a UTI. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) He ran some blood work, gave me some medication for a UTI and started me on antibiotics. I picked up my prescriptions. I went home still really not feeling great – I remember having my grandchildren that Friday and I laid in bed the whole day while my youngest one who was 3 played on the bed beside me. I really have no recollection of time from the 13th of December, except having my grandchildren over.

I spend the weekend on the couch or in my bed. Monday morning, my husband got up to get ready for work and realized I was not in bed – he came downstairs and tried to wake me. He said I was lucid but argumentative. He said I was acting strange – he threatened to call an ambulance. I was told I told him no, so he said he was going to get in the shower and if I come back and you are not up, you are going to the hospital. He came back and I was talking out of my head, making no sense and then foam started coming out of my mouth – he called 911. By the time they got here, I was unconscious – I was in cardiac arrest. By the time I got to the hospital, I was in kidney failure and heart failure, and he was told I had a 20% chance of living My organs were shutting down.

After stabilizing me, they took me to the ICU. I was in an induced coma, had a ventilator, eight IV bags going through infusion pumps, on kidney dialysis machine, receiving blood plasma, and the list goes on. My husband took pictures of all the machines around me, 8 in total I think. I woke up 10 days later and had no clue what had happened. I thought I had been in a car wreck – I had no memory of the date or where I had been for the last 2 weeks. It was Christmas Eve. To me, I lost memory from Dec 11, 2014 until I woke.

I remained in the hospital a bit until I could tell them where I was. I could not walk, drink or eat. I was told I was one very sick little girl. I had severe septic shock, CAD, angina, acute respiratory failure with hypoxia, sepsis associated hypotension, AKI, elevated troponin, hyperkalemia, ARDS, SOB, pneumonia, dyspnea, mitral regurgitation, and bilateral pulmonary infiltrates on chest X-ray.

I also was told that the 20% chance of surviving was more like 5%, because the window is so very short, 6 hours. So if my husband had not acted so quickly I was in effect, already dying – I was blessed by God to walk out of that hospital and I have to thank my wonderful staff of every fast acting doctors at Wellstar Cobb Hospital.

To this day I do not know why I survived and others did not, nor do I know why even close friends I know after I came home had other sepsis-related hospitlizations and lost limbs.

To this day, the word sepsis scares me to death. All I know is, yes I am one very lucky girl who still gets to be a caregiver to my father who had a stroke in 2007 and cannot walkm and lives with me – he gets my care one more day and for that I am blessed – Thank you Jesus for sparing me, but the changes to my body are new every day. To me that very sick girl died that day and the person who came home is changed forever, but I will continue to live with the new me the memory issues, the joint pain, and as they say the list goes on and on. Thank you for hearing my story.