Dilver B.

Survivor

I was on my deck, drinking my coffee and on my computer. All of a sudden my hands started shaking to the point that I could not hold my coffee cup stable enough to drink it. I went in the house and took my temperature and I had a slight fever. I took some tylenol and laid down. When I woke up I felt better and the shaking had stopped. I didn’t think much about it after that.

The next morning the same thing happened but the shaking got really bad and would not stop. I got my wife up and had her take me to the emergency room. By the time we got there I could barely walk and was shaking violently. After I was admitted I do not remember anything for a few hours. When I did become lucid the doctor told me I had a UTI and it had turned to sepsis. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) I have had three UTIs in the past and I had none of the normal symptoms, no pain and just a minor fever. They kept on IV medications for a few hours and told me I had to go to the hospital for treatment.

I did go to the hospital and was there in ICU for three days. I was not allowed out of the bed because of being a fall risk. I know three days is not a long time but for me it seemed forever.

After I went home I seemed to be fine. I did notice that I started to have balance problems, nothing extreme but a little dizziness. After a couple of years I got the same symptoms with the shaking hands and went directly to the emergency room. Again, sepsis from a UTI. Because I went to the ER earlier than the first time I did not have the same extreme symptoms I did the first time. I still had to stay in the hospital for three days.

Since then, about 2 years, the balance problem has gotten increasingly worse. I have fallen a few time and got stress fractures in 4 of my lower vertebrae when I fell and landed on my hip. My doctor sent me to therapy for it but it did not help. Being a healthy person all my life and being able to work on major projects, I cannot do many things that I have done in the past. It is very frustrating and depressing to be this way. I am using a cane to just walk around the house and have to get someone else to do the thing I used to always do myself. My legs seem to be losing strength and my knees will just give out. I would like to know, is there any treatment for this or do I have to just live with it?

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