Kate Marlowe
Sepsis saved my life. What?! Hear me out. I was a school teacher for 20 years, giving 110% of myself to my career, district, and most importantly, my students. I spent evenings, weekends, holidays, and summers recovering. Frequent illness, being the type A, minorly OCD, personality with a need for control, led me down many roads of fitness and nutrition programs in order to keep my head above water along the journey. I even left for a year, roughly halfway through my career, due to constant illness and burn-out, only to return to the classroom, I felt it was my purpose in life.
The years of teaching continued with the same cycle. My body, unable to withstand the on-going years of exposure to illness and infections in the classroom, slowly became unable to fight any illness. In my last year of teaching, I contracted a sinus infection, strep, and the flu. I quickly progressed to pneumonia, and landed in the hospital over New Year’s 2023 with sepsis. I left the hospital with a long road to recovery. I quickly learned a new normal for my life would result. My first follow-up virtual appointment resulted in medical directives for not returning to the classroom. I spent the remainder of the year on FMLA. I had an opportunity to make a lateral transition to remote teaching, only to be shot down with the district unwilling to release my contract. I muddled through as best I could, knowing my focus needed to be on me, my health and recovery. This is not a common concept for many in education!
I crossed paths with an ENT specialist after being referred for surgery. He happened to have in-depth training with redheads. Why? In his words, “I married a redhead: I learned quickly they don’t function the same, I had to figure her out.” He became the catalyst for my surgery, further testing and procedures, and a final diagnosis of ‘Paradoxical reactive airway disease due to MC1R immunity mutation with histamine response causing respiratory dystonia.’ I educated myself to learn what all that jargon meant. A gene mutation in red-heads, (the one that makes us unable to produce melanin and other quirks) was further mutated in me. It was a guessing game since I’m adopted, but doctors speculated it being due to factors I was exposed to in the womb, and chronic trauma from birth through childhood. The condition, although uncommon, created a dysfunctional immune response. In other words, I have heightened inflammation and histamine response that created the perfect storm for chronic auto-immune compromise.
Surgery alleviated the inflammation enough to improve my breathing. His surgical results and prescribed therapy allowed my voice to return after 5 months. Follow-up treatments and testing with numerous doctors resulted in a plan to keep residual issues with my pulmonary and immune systems under control. I’m better able to prevent flares, and manage them to minimize the risk for a relapse with sepsis. The risk is that once you’ve had chronic sepsis, re-infection is easier to occur, as well as the escalation to septic shock.
I lost my career, a large part of my professional and social networks, and crushed plans as an educator. You may still be wondering, “How on earth did this save your life?” The journey also gifted me with a spiritual awakening, and a new lease on life. Jesus knew, better than I, what it would take for me to surrender, and put my faith in him. I was saved April, 26th 2024, and given a new purpose in life as a result of my illness. The new journey is slowly unfolding, and I’ve never been more alive, and living a higher purpose.
