Hailey B.

In 2020 when I was 23 years old, I had severe septic shock stemming from appendicitis. I began experiencing severe abdominal pain and nausea, which I had originally thought was food poisoning. The pain would hit me in the middle of the night, and then be gone by the morning. After three nights in a row of pain, I called my family for help. The next morning, they picked me up and took me to see my family doctor. When I went to the appointment, she immediately ordered bloodwork and ultrasounds to be done. The bloodwork confirmed that I had an infection, but the ultrasound didn’t show anything abnormal. That night, the pain got so severe that I was screaming in agony, and my family called an ambulance. I was taken to hospital where I sat in the waiting room for 6 hours. They concluded that I likely had ovarian cysts. They sent me home with painkillers. After a few days, we realized that the painkillers weren’t helping and I wasn’t improving, so I was taken to a different hospital. I sat in their waiting room for another 5 hours, where I was told that I likely have endometriosis. They gave me the contact information for a gynecologist that had a long waiting list of patients, and sent me home.

The next day was when I realized something was very wrong. I became delirious, wasn’t able to eat, and not able to move from the pain. I was feeling weak, so my family checked my blood pressure, which ended up being 50/30. We were horrified, and I was rushed to the hospital for a final time. I don’t remember anything after being wheeled into the emergency room. From what I was told, I was wheeled into the ICU and the head of Icu was paged to meet me there. I was rushed into surgery with multiple doctors present, because they still didn’t know what the cause was. The surgeon conducted a full laparotomy, and found that my appendix had slowly ruptured weeks prior, and was spreading infection throughout my entire body. They realized at that point I had severe septic shock. They had to clean out my entire abdomen from infection and I needed multiple blood transfusions. I was put on a ventilator as life support for 5 days after the surgery. I woke up in ICU hallucinating, delirious and not knowing what happened to me.

I didn’t find out that I had sepsis until towards the end of my hospital stay, but I knew that my appendix had been a very complicated case. The ICU care team was amazing, and were very gentle at telling me what happened because they knew I would be very scared. I didn’t truly understand the damage that sepsis had done to my body until I researched it myself after I was discharged from the hospital. The sepsis impacted all of my organs, and I was on heavy doses of multiple antibiotics to fight it. I had drains inserted to get rid of the remaining infection alongside the antibiotics. I was in ICU for 45 days before being discharged. I had to relearn how to walk, brush my hair, feed myself and breathe on my own.  I was very lucky that the antibiotics worked at fighting the infection, and I’ve made a full recovery.

It was hard to learn about how serious my case of sepsis actually was, and realizing had it been left for hours longer, I may not be here today. I struggled with PTSD and post sepsis syndrome, and lost my hair. I experienced memory loss, brain fog, getting triggered by noises, body aches and pains, and fatigue. I still have my days of feeling cognitive symptoms, but I’m very lucky that my body is fully recovered. I have a long scar down my abdomen that tells my story of bravery and is a reminder of how much I’ve overcome. I am forever grateful that I have the opportunity to be here today to tell my story and hope that others don’t have to go through what I have. Knowing the signs of sepsis and asking your healthcare professionals if you could be experiencing sepsis could save your life.