Karen Karnes

April 26, 2015. I have had kidney stones before so I knew the pain in the left side of my back. I went to the emergency room where they gave me an IV for a few hours, took an ultrasound and sent me home with a prescription. (Sepsis and Kidney Stones)

April 27, 2015 – The next day I woke up with uncontrollable shakes and I was cold. These shakes lasted 30-40 minutes each. Finally in the early afternoon, I decided we should go back to the emergency room. After making it to the room to be seen again, my fiancé, Ty, said my eyes rolled back into my head and I fell back. He immediately stepped out of the room and told the doctor. Ty was sent to a waiting room where an hour later I was wheeled out hooked up to all kinds of machines and going to ICU.

The next day when I was stable, they put a stent in for the kidney stones. I was unconscious for eight days. One of my daughters in the Air Force was called home from Germany, as they didn’t expect me to make it. I had been intubated so I couldn’t talk when I did wake up. After a couple of days, they took that out. An infectious control doctor asked me questions and they believed this started in 2010 when I had a UTI for nine months that wouldn’t respond to antibiotics. (Sepsis and UTIs) The last specialist I saw back then gave me the strongest drug they had, which initially didn’t work. He didn’t know what else to do and mentioned that I could be admitted to the hospital for four weeks to be put on IV antibiotics. I found that hard to believe and he didn’t push the issue so instead I tried the pills again. After the second prescription the UTI was gone. But in reality it had colonized somewhere in my body only to come out five years later when my kidney stones acted up which caused the infection to spread throughout my body making me septic.

I had a team of doctors checking on me every day. I spent 10 nights in ICU before I was moved to another floor for 6 nights before I was discharged. While an inpatient, they had me on an IV antibiotic that I continued after being discharged for another two weeks as an outpatient everyday at the same time. I have never been an inpatient before let alone in bed for that long. I was surprised at the muscle loss. I couldn’t even stand up at first. The hospital physical therapist came in a few times to show me exercises and had me using a walker, under supervision, to walk again. When I was discharged I could walk on my own.