David Smith

In October 2008 I was participating in a new-hire employee training program in Missouri, when I rapidly became very ill in my hotel room. I thought I had contracted the flu, so I stayed in bed to rest. (Sepsis and Influenza)

Within a few hours I was near delirious, but fortunately several of my classmates checked on me to see why I hadn’t shown up for student activities. My classmates called paramedics, and I spent nine days in the ICU in Missouri, where I was diagnosed with sepsis and stabilized.

My wife arranged to have me air lifted to a hospital in Mission Viejo, California, my home town. There I was further diagnosed with pneumococcal sepsis. (Sepsis and Pneumonia) I later learned that I had a type of sepsis known in the medical literature as Overwhelming Postsplenectomy Infection (OPSI), a consequence of having lost my spleen 30 years before. (Sepsis and Impaired Immune System)

I was in the hospital for over two months and, as a consequence of necrosis, lost my left hand and foot, the front half of my right foot, all but about an inch of each finger of my right hand, and my nose. (Sepsis and Amputations)

For a while my doctors thought I would lose my lips and tongue, but I was spared that. I also went temporarily blind from ocular bleeds (bleeding in the eye), but after a few weeks I regained my sight, although I had to have cataract surgeries. I’ve had four nasal reconstruction surgeries, and will need more.

If anyone would like to learn more about the condition I developed, I would recommend reading the excellent article Overwhelming postsplenectomy infection: Managing patients at risk by Sandra L. Moffett PA-C, in the July, 2009 issue of JAAPA. A free downloadable PDF version may be found at https://media.haymarketmedia.com/documents/9/review-opsi0709_2214.pdf