Gail Lange

I really didn’t know much about sepsis until being diagnosed with it on Oct 22, 2017. I’m a 62-year-old Grandma of one, with diabetes, who had been fairly healthy, until this debacle with sepsis which almost took my life. (Sepsis and Diabetes)

I had gone to work the morning of Oct 21st, feeling fine with the exception of being tired. Halfway through the shift, I felt pain in my upper back on both sides and just thought I had slept in a poor position and would go away…Wrong. Shortly afterwards, I had vomited and told my co-worker that I wasn’t feeling and was going home. I drove home and told my spouse I was going to lie down for awhile, but still had the pain/vomiting. He called 911 against my wishes, but at that point, I didn’t put up too much of a fuss.

My first ambulance ride took me to the ER of our local hospital, where they did a CT scan and administered morphine. The CT scan revealed kidney damage, but no kidney stone was found, their thinking that the stone had passed, therefore I was discharged. At home, I went to bed to sleep this whole thing off while my spouse watched the PSU game. Later that evening, when he checked on me, he found me unresponsive and called 911 a second time. Upon arriving at the ER again, they found that I two strains of bacteria raging through my system with no knowledge of how it got there. I was immediately given three different antibiotics, put into a drug induced coma, hooked up to a ventilator and an NG tube inserted through my nose which removed bile from my stomach. Fortunately, I have no recollection of any of these unpleasantries. After three days, the ventilator and NG tube were removed and I woke up feeling dazed and confused with pain and extreme weakness.

They explained that I was very sick with sepsis, kidney damage, blood sugar of 476, high white blood count, low red blood count, and had been admitted to the ICU, where I remained for ten days. I was overloaded with fluids, so much that it had to be drawn out of my lungs after I left ICU and went to a regular room. There was nothing regular about it. I had developed pneumonia, had a lot of different tests done and had two units of blood to build up the RBC which was very low because of stage 4 kidney disease.(Sepsis and Pneumonia)

After a 28-day hospital /rehab stay, I was finally able to go home with a walker and outpatient therapy for six additional weeks. I went back to work in the IT dept in Jan, 2018.

One thing I’ve learned is that you never know what tomorrow will bring, so so not take ANYTHING for granted. Enjoy the simple things and live each day as if it were your last. Thank God for each day and for shining his light upon you.

Another thing is that sepsis is NOT something you get over. It’s something you SURVIVE. That quote actually came from another sepsis
survivor, which really resonated with me.