Deirdre Stewart

In May 2011, I was newly remarried and life was great! I had two great jobs, a new husband and a bright future ahead.

I am never sick and I was surprised when I had what I thought was a sinus infection or maybe a reaction to a wasp bite. I felt progressively worse over the next three weeks. I was totally exhausted, my joints ached horribly no matter whether I sat or laid down, and my feet were swollen. I had hot and cold flashes and sweats. I would tremble uncontrollably in bed from being cold even though it was summer and I was under a mound of blankets. I couldn’t eat anything and drank very little, yet my body was hugely bloated. I went to an emergency clinic and for over two hours drank water and tried to urinate but couldn’t. At closing time, they sent me home to rest and they told me to come back the next day.

The next day and night are a blur. I stayed home from work and I alternated between freezing, shivering to sweating profusely. That night I tried to sleep but couldn’t because of the chills and then hot flashes. I was so hot at one point I got until a tub of cold water fully clothed. That’s the last thing I remember.

Thank God my husband slept an hour later than his usual 2 am. He said I was lying on the floor, making no sense and crying uncontrollably. He picked me up and took me to his truck and drove like a mad man to a nearby emergency room. The doctors and nurses went to work immediately. My blood pressure was practically non-existent. My breathing was shallow and labored, and my body temperature was dangerously low.

I spent 10 days in the hospital drifting in and out of reality. The first four days, I had tubes and wires all over my body, and tests of every kind were performed. Doctors finally inserted a stent in a failed kidney, where a huge kidney stone was lodged in the urethra. (Sepsis and Kidney Stones) By day nine it passed, but the kidney was damaged. The stent remained in for nearly nine months and the kidney functions fairly well. The doctors told me I was one lucky lady. Ninety percent of people who come into the hospital in my condition would not have survived!

My energy level definitely isn’t the same as before nor is my eyesight or kidneys BUT every day, month and year it gets better. I take vitamins, iron and magnesium every day and it helps tremendously.

I had never heard of sepsis before but I now know how potentially deadly it can be. I consider myself one of the lucky ones!

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Added on September 3, 2014 – Deirdre posted this on the SA Facebook page and granted us permission to add it to her story:

Just wanted to report an exciting bit of Sepsis awareness news. Three years ago, I had a near fatal bout with sepsis. It was two days into a seven-day hospital stay before it was definitively diagnosed. On Sunday night, my niece called me to tell me my second oldest sister had been very ill all day long and was acting weird. She and her dad were considering taking her to a urgent care clinic. Something just didn’t sound right, as we had all had met for dinner the night before and she seemed tired but ok.

Something just clicked in me and I told them to get her to the ER NOW. I met them at the hospital and within 10 minutes, she was seeing a doctor. My sister had been and was still violently ill; vomiting huge amounts of green bile and acting disoriented among other symptoms. The doctors and nurses started immediately doing all they could “before sepsis set in”!

They were continually talking about time elapsed since admitted, fluids given and other emergency procedures to prevent sepsis. Although she was diagnosed with sepsis among other things, it was comforting to know how aware they were of the possibility of it. She’s still being treated and they are trying to figure out what happened. Her nurse, a 34-year veteran of ER nursing later told us the awareness on identifying and preventing Sepsis is high priority at their hospital! Yeah!!