Liss K.

My story with sepsis is somewhat long as I have battled it three times now over the past 8 years!! I have MSK (medullary sponge kidneys). Due to having MSK, I have suffered kidney stones since I was 15 yrs old! My first experience with sepsis began after my left kidney ruptured while I was trying to pass a kidney stone! (Sepsis and Kidney Stones)

I have passed many of stones as well as had several surgeries over my lifetime due to kidney stones! So the first time getting septic, I thought it was just another episode, yet the pain became unbearable and I was forced to call an ambulance to rush me to the hospital! Upon getting there, my blood pressure dropped to 88/42 and I was rushed to surgery where I had to have a drain put into my kidney to drain it. I was hospitalized for a few days and left with the drain in my kidney where it remained most of that summer! I recovered without an issue!

It wasn’t even two years later that I found myself back in the hospital with severe sepsis due to an undiagnosed kidney infection. I was given antibiotics and thank the Lord I recovered yet again without any lasting affects! In June 2021, I fell sick, I mean awfully sick, yet I had just bought a new home so I ignored all the symptoms that I was feeling due to life and let myself go, which resulted in me passing out and being rushed to the hospital with the paramedics involved. I remember vaguely of having to pull the ambulance over and two men jumping in the back to get a line in my neck. From there everything is a blur, yet I remember coming out of surgery which resulted in another drain in my right kidney this time and not being able to breathe!

I remember hearing on the overhead speaker we need a crash cart to room 501, that was my room. Suddenly my room went from empty to being filled with doctors. I had nurses on both sides of me pumping my arms to get my blood pressure, and a bag of ice placed on my groin! I remember being forced to sign a paper to receive a shot that pulled all the blood from all my organs in order to get to my heart! I was placed in the ICU for 5 days! I can’t remember anything about those 5 days in the ICU! I left the hospital with the drain in my kidney with a visiting nurse who visited me for 2 weeks!

The strange thing was I was never told anything about recovering from sepsis! I never heard of any issues that could develop due to surviving sepsis! Its now almost 6 years later, and I have not been normal since! I have been hospitalized with a strep skin infection that attacked my heart, which resulted in 8 days in the hospital! Following the strep skin infection I was hospitalized with RSV, flu A and severe asthma! I now live with severe autoimmune issues, my hands and feet are constantly cold even turning blue at times as well as my lips. Severe I mean disabling exhaustion, severe depression, I have even caught myself drooling at times, I’m dizzy a lot of the time. I have a hard time swallowing food, mental decline, physical decline as well my quality of life is gone! What upsets me the most as to why was I not told of these severe lasting affects about sepsis?

I never realized sepsis was as serious as it it is I never realized those with sepsis are the sickest people in the hospital! Not one of my doctors scheduled me for follow up care or explained anything to me about what sepsis is or how one develops it! In fact my doctors pushed me off to each other, resulting in the collapse of my kidney drain as I wasn’t even scheduled to have the tube removed. I had to pay 1k just to have the surgery to remove the draining tube out of my kidney! It really upsets me as there are no advocates for sepsis survivors. No one is there to help guide the patients thru the recovery as well as prepare the patients of what could possibly develop from surviving sepsis! Surviving sepsis has been a long lonely experience. Something needs to be done to help survivors navigate the new world we enter after suffering from such a traumatic life event! To everyone out there that has suffered and survived like me, you’re not alone and it is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a life changing experience that needs more science and support!!