Mackenzie Lynch

One day I got a blister on my heel while I was at a wedding. Two days later it turned blue and I was extremely sick and couldn’t keep anything down or stand up. After 1 doctor telling me “I only had a migraine”, and then another that “my foot was definitely infected but you don’t need medicine”, it continued to get worse.

My mom carried me to the truck and we rushed to the hospital. On the way, I lost all feeling in my fingers and toes, and couldn’t see anything but white. By the time we got to the hospital I was pulled onto a gurney and hooked up to four IVs, doctors yelling and running around me. Before I knew it, they rushed me out to the helipad and loaded me onto the helicopter to get to the PICU at another hospital.

Because of the overload of endorphins that fight off the medication that should’ve been putting me to sleep, I stayed awake for everything. They slid the plastic board beneath my back, strapped my ankles and wrists to the table, my clothes were cut off, my legs were being pinned down, central line being put in, and the pads were being stuck to my chest. the doctors yelled “clear” and then “wait, not yet”. There was a strange woman grasping my hand telling me it was going to be alright.

Soon after, I was intubated and put into a medically induced coma. The doctors said I was at most two minutes from dying that day. And I didn’t wake up until a few days later. It’s been 11 months since that day and I still am not fully recovered– mentally or physically. But what kills me the most is how many times sepsis is missed and how many lives it costs us.