Debbie Evans

On 10/10/2012, I had been having acid reflux all day but it was a little different than usual. It came up and out of my mouth, some down into my lungs, and it was brown. I coughed a lot. I went to bed that night and it seemed like every 15 minutes this would happen to me and I got no sleep. By 4 AM, I woke my husband because I couldn’t breath too well and he called the squad. As soon as they gave me oxygen I said that I could breathe better.

I remember being in the big ER room and who my doctors were. I didn’t know I had sepsis. It was going to be a while before they brought me up to ICU, so they told my husband he should go home and they would call him. We just lived right down the street. While he was gone, my blood pressure fell to 82/58. I passed out and they put oxygen on me and gave me antibiotics. I don’t remember anything else until the next day. My pulmonary doctor’s partner was on that day and he came in in the morning. He asked me questions and I don’t remember that either. My male nurse told me that the doctor asked if anyone was sick at home when I mentioned my son was sick. I told him I don’t even remember the doctor being there. I was breathing fast, having panic attacks, fever, and pneumonia. (Sepsis and Pneumonia)

I had just had surgery for an arachnoid cyst on my thoracic spine on 8/27/12 and I went to rehab until 9/27/12. I came home and had home aid nurses come in and I ended up getting sepsis. (Sepsis and Surgery) I didn’t even know I had sepsis till that first day in ICU, later in the day when my husband came in. When my nurse told me, I was shocked and in tears because my ex-boyfriend had died from septic shock years before. My doctor wanted to do a bronchial scope because I couldn’t get anything up. When I had my back surgery, the surgeon messed up my spine and I had nerve damage and part of my spinal cord damaged, so I couldn’t feel my right side and it was my right lung that had pneumonia in it. The doctor took out the junk from my right lung and did all kinds of tests to see if I had anything in my lung, but there wasn’t anything. He said it was either from acid reflux going down into my lungs or long-term use of narcotics because I had chronic pain but only on narcotics 4 years. I had had acid reflux for about 15 years or more.

Everything is foggy. There are things I forget. I did end up going home on oxygen. I was weaned off of it during the day after a few months and then at night-time a few months later. Thank you for reading my story. I read other stories more devastating than mine and I hope those people are better now.