Doug Morrison

My story actually begins some thirty years ago with a completely collapsed disk in my lower back, causing sciatic nerve troubles down my right leg, causing the front half of my right foot to become permanently numb. Then fast forward to September of 2016 when I began having breathing difficulties which progressively became worse and worse to a point where by March of 2017 I simply had to go to a hospital. But never mind my breathing troubles as the doctors then found a massive infection in my right foot which ordinarily would have been particularly painful but because my foot was numb I could not feel any pain.

Immediately I was then put on a 28-day program of 24/7 intravenous antibiotic medication where eventually I had IV connections going up and down both of my arms and then it was a few months in a nursing home with a couple of months in a wheelchair, and then a month of walking around with a cane. Two white blood cell tests then taken about a month apart indicated that the sepsis infection was all gone, thank goodness, and now I can walk around for shorter distances without a cane but forget about mile-long hikes, and I still need either a cane or a handrail for going up and down staircases.

I have been out of the nursing home for almost three months and I am doing better now than I was then. But I do experience some residual effects of the sepsis infection. For the most part these effects are relatively minor but I am not physically and am not mentally the same as I once was. Surfing the web allowed me to discover Sepsis Alliance and I have now scheduled an appointment with a local health clinic associated with the hospital I was in. I do not think I need medication or anything like that but I would just like to talk with somebody who is familiar with sepsis and its after-effects. And to you at Sepsis Alliance, hello to everybody in the sepsis survivor community! Best, – Doug