Diane Luke

It was May 9th, 2011, the day after Mother’s Day. I woke up excited to be going to the Mother’s Day breakfast at my daughter’s school. When I came back home I felt what I can only describe as being “off.” I took my temperature and it was only 100.6. However I knew this needed to be watched. I have systemic lupus and at that time had been battling a wound on my foot that would not heal. (Sepsis and Autoimmune Diseases, Sepsis and Impaired Immune System) It kept getting infected and I would end up in the hospital and then on six weeks of IV antibiotics. But the infections never made me feel very sick. I was just tired of having to stay off my foot and of constantly being on the look out for new infections.

My temperature climbed to 102. My husband and I examined my foot and wound looking for the usual redness that signaled an infection. We couldn’t find anything. I didn’t want to go to the hospital because it meant the ER and I really thought that this time it was something else. But by 3pm, only six hours after the Mother’s Day breakfast that had all changed. I had my husband call the paramedics because I was having trouble breathing. When they got to the house my temperature was 104.5, my pulse 177, and my blood pressure dangerously low. I was immediately taken to the hospital.

The ER tried fluids at first. They gave me nine bags of fluid and I still would not stabilize. I drifted in and out of consciousness. They told me they were taking me to the ICU. I remember a doctor telling me that in order to live I needed to go on a ventilator. I was very scared. I called my husband to tell him that I loved him. All I could think about was our 6-year-old daughter. I woke up four days later. I was better but not out of the woods. While on the ventilator I had gone into kidney failure although, thankfully, they started working again. I had been septic with MRSA. (Sepsis and MRSA) My blood pressure was all out of whack as now it was too high from all the drugs they had given me when it was too low.

I spent two weeks in ICU and then was deemed well enough to go to the regular floor where I spent another two weeks. During this time, I was visited by three different surgeons who all gave me the same opinion. I needed to have a below the knee amputation. The wound in my foot had a deep bone infection. No matter how many antibiotics they gave me, they could not reach it to completely kill it. So each time I went off the antibiotics it started to grow again. It was quite possible that the next infection, if I became septic, would kill me. The only way to stop it was to remove the foot. They just don’t do foot amputations as then there would be no way for a prosthetic. (Sepsis and Amputations)

I had my amputation on June 18th. Since that time I feel much healthier in that my body is finally free of all infection after two years. I am a little slow to heal and do not have a prosthetic yet, but I do know that sometime soon I will walk again. I was very lucky. If we had waited a few more hours it may have been too late because the illness progressed so quickly and was quite violent. I still have problems with my blood pressure and after the amputation surgery I went into kidney failure again, although again I recovered. They believe that my kidneys were still in a bit of a shock from the sepsis.

If you become suddenly severely ill don’t waste time. Go to the ER and tell them that you think you are septic. Don’t ignore the symptoms. Listen to your body. Don’t let the sepsis win!