Kristin Hartzell

Survivor

It’s Good Friday, and I’m at work. I’m a mid-level manager at a pharmaceutical company, and things are very hectic. I am poised to lead a major project with high visibility, and I’m on top of my game. The phone rings. My 4-year-old threw up at pre-school. I don’t have time for this, I think to myself. I leave in the middle of a meeting to go get her. She has a stomach bug, and I spend the next two days cuddling her back to health.

It’s Easter Sunday. I wake up feeling achy and slightly groggy. I sure hope I’m not getting sick. I have clients coming in tomorrow, and need to deliver a major presentation. I put on my new Easter dress and notice it fits much tighter than when I bought it just a few days ago. My belly feels swollen and tender. I make it through the day’s brunches and family gatherings. I think I’m getting my daughter’s bug.

It’s Monday. I feel even achier and groggier. I make it through the workday somehow and survive the client meeting, although I know I wasn’t at my best. I go to my business dinner, but feel really out of it. I decline a glass of wine, eat my dinner, and duck out early. When I get home, I tell my husband I’m not feeling well and go to bed at 9:00 pm. I wake up two hours later and lay on the bathroom floor. I definitely have E’s bug. I spend the night vomiting and feverish.

It’s Tuesday. I wake up with a terrible pain in my left shoulder. My lymph nodes are swollen. I still feel feverish and nauseous. My husband calls my doctor’s office and makes an appointment for the afternoon. I sleep until then. I am so weak I can barely make it into his truck. We don’t even make it out of the driveway before I am violently ill. There is no way I can make it to the doctor. I tell him to cancel the appointment and crawl back into bed. Tomorrow I will feel better.

It’s Wednesday. I am still vomiting. I wake up to horrendous calf cramps. I am surely dehydrated. My husband insists that we go to the ER. We make the 20-minute drive to the neighboring city. On the way there I keep my eyes tightly shut. When I open them, I can’t see anything. The world has been washed in blinding bright white. I can’t walk into the ER, he pushes me in a wheelchair. It’s 2:00 pm and the ER is empty, so I get right in. The attending assures me that there is a nasty stomach virus going around, and I must be dehydrated. They take my vitals. My blood pressure is 60/40. I am starting to lose touch with reality. The nurse draws several vials of blood and starts an IV. I am wheeled back for a chest x-ray. When I get back to the room, my husband informs me that the lab work indicates my kidneys have stopped working. This doesn’t seem to faze me. The doctor wants to transfer me by ambulance to a trauma center in a neighboring town.

When I get to the hospital, my room is in the ICU. The doctor tells me they are enacting septic protocol, which involves placement of a central line. I burst into tears. I still think I will only be here for a day or so until I get rehydrated. This is the last thing I remember.

It’s…I have no idea. I am in a museum, strapped to a bed behind a thick purple curtain. I have been bound and gagged. Surely I must have been kidnapped. I wrack my brain trying to remember how this could’ve happened. Someone must have grabbed me when I was at the mall last week buying Easter shoes for the girls. Does my husband know I’m gone? The hallucinations come fast and furious. I am in the bottom of a boat. An elderly toothless man keeps poking me with a stick. I must escape.

I am on a ventilator. I have a feeding tube. I am restrained. I am in renal and respiratory failure. I am completely delusional. I am in advanced septic shock. My vasodilator dose is maxed out to keep my heart pumping. I need blood transfusions. I am kept in a coma to allow my body to rest and fight this infection, which turns out to be Group A Beta Hemolytic Streptococcus. They will never figure out how I got the infection.

I will spend 15 days in the hospital, 9 of those in the ICU. Things get worse before they get better, but I make it. I survive. My nurses like to remind me of this, as they had given me about a 20% chance. The battle doesn’t end once I leave the hospital. My hair falls out in clumps. The skin on my palms and soles of me feet peels off in sheets. I will spend three months off work to recover physically. The mental recovery will take much longer. I am lucky to be alive.

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