Kerri Murray

Survivor

I’m a flight attendant for a major airline and was having the time of my life. I was flying international trips (finally – after 20 years) and dating a Captain. After going through difficult divorces, we had met on a trip to Frankfurt, Germany in April 2007. Rob and I flew to amazing destinations and had wonderful, romantic dates all over the world.

We had made plans to fly a Barcelona two-day layover over New Year’s Eve 2007. On the flight to Barcelona, I started to feel that old familiar twinge of a UTI. I remember telling Rob that I thought I was getting “the urinary tract infection from Hell.” Little did I know at the time how prophetic that statement was.

Since I was in a foreign country over a holiday, finding medical treatment was a challenge. Frankly I had no idea a urinary tract infection (UTI) could turn into a deadly illness that would almost kill me. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) I had never even heard of sepsis. We scoured the convenience stores and gas station shops (the regular grocery stores were closed) for cranberry juice. That’s the one fruit I don’t think they have in Spain because we never found it. Since I didn’t want to miss anything, I pushed myself. Even though I wasn’t feeling well on New Year’s Day, we walked all over Barcelona and saw the beautiful sights on an amazing day. By that evening I was feeling the pain moving into my lower back. I knew the infection was going into my kidneys, but if I could just make it back to the States, I knew I would be okay.

The next day, the flight home was jam packed. It was so busy and I remember not being able to grab a sip of water because we were hopping the entire flight. About two hours from landing, I was in bad shape and getting worse. I remember going into the lavatory and crying. I finally told my boyfriend how sick I was and that I couldn’t work anymore. Two weeks prior to that trip, I had my gallbladder removed and still had some pain pills. Rob received permission for me to take the pain meds and I was officially taken off duty at that point and was told paramedics would meet the flight in Atlanta.

The flight home was on Wednesday, January 2. When we landed I was evaluated by the paramedics and told I could go to the hospital. I asked if I could go to the clinic in the Atlanta airport instead and they said I could. I was taken in a wheelchair to the clinic where they diagnosed me with a UTI and prescribed antibiotics. I don’t live in Atlanta, so I still had to commute to my home in Tallahassee. Rob lived in Colorado at the time and he went back to Denver. We didn’t know how sick I was at the time. My children were out of town visiting their Dad’s family so I was all alone in the house. I have been sick many times in my life, but never so ill that I couldn’t make it to the store. I was rapidly deteriorating. I had a high fever and could barely get out of bed. By Thursday evening when I wasn’t getting better, my best friend took me to the ER and they diagnosed a kidney infection and gave me a stronger antibiotic and sent me home.

By Saturday I was getting worse. My girls had gotten home from their trip (I could not physically go the airport and pick them up, I was so sick). I remember my feet were like blocks of ice. They wouldn’t warm up even with a heating pad or hot water. I had a high fever and alternated between shivering with chills and burning up. My girls were very concerned when I started vomiting and lost control of my bladder. My oldest daughter, who was 17 at the time, said she was taking me back to the hospital. No questions asked. Thank goodness she did because by then I had urosepsis.

The hospital admitted me and started a cocktail of strong antibiotics. They placed me on a morphine pump because of the incredible pain throughout my whole body. The thing I remember most about the pump was the first time I hit it, my feet warmed up! The doctor told me had I waited another 24 hours to seek treatment, I would have died. There would have been so much infection that the drugs would not have worked. After five days in the hospital, I was well enough to go home and was told I had drug resistant e-Coli and would have to have intravenous drug therapy at home for two weeks.

Two months later I was well enough to go back to work. Rob visited me many times during my illness and to this day we are so grateful to the doctors and the hospital for saving my life.

In April 2011, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I wonder if sepsis could have contributed to the fibromyalgia because there is some research that points to the cause being from a severe infection. Who knows? I’m just happy to still be here and to tell people to never let a UTI go untreated. It may be the last thing you ever do.

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