Emma S.

Emma S.
Survivor

December 2017 was the worst Christmas to date. I contracted influenza and battled through Christmas and all the preparations with a streaming nose, high temperatures and aches. The symptoms peaked and lessened as I self medicated my way back home on a train with my partner and five-year-old son. By this point nausea and deep kidney pains had set in. I spent the night in a pool of sweat, writhing around the bed with high temperature and chills. (Sepsis and Influenza) This was by far the most horrendous ‘flu’ I had experienced.

I rang 111 and caught a taxi to A&E where I sat for 6 hours in my dressing gown curled up in a ball in the waiting room in a terrible state. I fainted once and my blood pressure dropped. When I was seen and the triage took my bloods, a doctor quizzed me about my flu. He told me my white blood count was very high, I had sepsis as my body has been battling an infection. He needed to find the source of the infection as he was sure it was not from the flu. A urine sample and another hour later and I had been diagnosed with UTI on top on flu. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections)

I was hooked up to IV UTI antibiotics, hydration fluids and left in a quiet room. I was told I was much too poorly to go home and that I was very lucky my kidneys had not started to fail. I spent one night on a ward with three women with dementia and UTI. They kept me smiling but I honestly have never ever felt so sick in my life. The next day the consultant came round to discharge, he began with “hello, I hear you have had a terrible old time”- I replied “ you are telling me”. I began to feel better but I felt like my body had been invaded, my skin smelt different and I was still weak as a kitten. My advice to anyone suffering an infection with a temperature- go to the GP ASAP, it’s just not worth what could go wrong in leaving it.

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