Jess Batrouney

Survivor

This is a long story but I feel it needs to be shared to raise awareness:
6 years ago I was 24 and I had a beautiful baby boy who was delivered by C-Section. During the operation the surgeon perforated my bowel unknowingly and continued to finish the procedure. (Sepsis and Pregnancy & Childbirth, Sepsis and Surgery, Sepsis and Perforated Bowel)

After my baby was born I knew something was wrong, I was getting excruciating pains which would not subside. Each time the doctors came to visit I would tell them how I was feeling and they would just give me panadol. Days went by and I grew weaker I could barely breathe, talk, eat or walk. I would just lay there helpless looking at my new baby while I was crying, knowing there was something wrong but no one would believe me.

On the 5th day I knew I was dying, my body was shutting down so my partner and I threatened legal action unless my situation was looked into thoroughly and my needs were met. The doctor told me they could take me into surgery and have a look to see what was going on, but if it was nothing I would have to suffer with a big scar vertically across my abdomen for the rest of my life.

I agreed and they took me into surgery, and that was all I could remember. I got airlifted by helicopter to a bigger hospital for better care. I was intubated for the days following the procedure to give my body the chance to fight the infection and both my lungs had collapsed so I couldn’t breathe properly on my own. I had a tubes coming from everywhere you could possibly imagine and 13 machines keeping me alive and giving me fluids, drugs and antibiotics.

When I woke I was greeted by a lady nurse and I was told I had just woken from an induced coma and I was in ICU. She told me I had lost part of my bowel as it had died and had to have a right hemocolectomy performed on my bowel due to perforation occurring during my c-section (part of the large and small bowel along with some intestine were cut out and rejoined.) Also, the matter from my bowel had leaked slowly out of the perforation and all through my body during the 5 days that I was suffering after my ceasarean. The matter had caused pockets of infections (sepsis) all over my body and into my organs including my lungs causing pneumonia and also an infection in my blood stream. (Sepsis and Pneumonia) I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink, I couldn’t breast feed and I definitely could not walk. I was getting hourly needles, they were taking blood up to 4 times a day for 3 weeks. Every 15 minutes I’d have my obs taken and daily warfarin. I had my food fed to me through the nasogastric tube in my nose for 2 weeks after the coma and was wheeled in for test after test to see why I wasn’t recovering. Every time they told me I could go home a reason would pop for why I couldn’t, I spent 3 weeks enduring this mind wrenching hell before a blood transfusion got me well enough to go home for bed rest.

Since then we have built our family, renovated our home, raised a baby in to a toddler, I studied to get a job as a disability support worker and much more. I have shared this with you not for you sympathy, not to complain, but because I wanted to raise awareness as sepsis is not talked about enough and to let people know that if you feel something’s wrong, it is so important to tell the doctor’s until they take action because if I didn’t I would not be alive. I suffer from post sepsis syndrome, I have high anxiety, depression, concentration and memory problems. (Sepsis and Post-Sepsis Syndrome) I am also very fatigued as I suffer insomnia and horrible nightmares. All of this even 6 years later! But I have learned to appreciate life, love, hope, family, relationships and friends especially my amazing husband and now 12-year-old son who were there with me every single step of the way. My poor newborn son had to be without his mother when he needed me most, I could have left a new born and 6yo boy without their mother all because the doctors didn’t do their job properly!

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