Kirsty Burroughes

I was away from home when I become every ill! I had flu-like symptoms but was throwing up loads! I called my mum and explained how dreadful I felt and used the words, “I feel like death!” My mum and stepfather traveled down to Essex to pick me up, which is where I was staying! When I got home, I continued to throw up and was very lethargic! My mum called the A&E and explained my symptoms, and they told her to get me down to A&E as soon as possible!

When I got there, I got seen straight away! I got put straight on a IV drip, two different tubes (one water and one antibiotics); they said to my mum, “Your daughter has sepsis!” At the time (three years ago), sepsis was not well known, so my mum and I had no idea what sepsis was! The first question I asked is, “Am I going to die?” The nurse’s reply was, “I think we have caught it in time; if you were an hour later, then it would have been a totally different situation, and your organs would have began to shut down!” You can imagine what was going through my head as a 16 year old girl!

I had a heart rate of 150 and a temperature of 40c! My eyes were glazed over, and I was very confused about what was happening around me! The doctors took good care of me and kept me isolated away from everyone else, as if I had caught anything else, I would have died!

I fought sepsis but knew the battle was still on! And I wasn’t wrong. Days before my seventeenth birthday I fought sepsis again! Again I was on a IV, and had a heart rate of 140 and a temperature! I knew I wasn’t as bad as the first time, as I wasn’t confused and we caught it early as we knew the symptoms to look out for!

My experiences with sepsis were caused both times through having a chest infection and tonsillitis which lead them to removing my tonsils later on in 2019. (Sepsis and Bacterial Infections)