Matthew Curley

Survivor
On the morning of June 12th I woke up feeling fine, ready for work. While at work, I began to get the chills, much worse than any I ever had before. It felt as if it was 30 degrees in the kitchen I worked in, where it actually was high 70s.

That night I started having a fever and started to feel a pain in my left lung right, below my heart. The next morning I woke up and the pain increased so much it hurt to breath so I had to take short breaths. I got so dehydrated that I passed out and knew I needed to go get help.

On the way to the doctor my mom said I became unresponsive while we were having a conversation. I passed out again. This time was much worse as everything I saw was bright. I couldn’t physically see anything, just figures and I could hear who was talking. When I got to the hospital, the doctor told me they thought I had pneumonia, but couldn’t explain why I passed out. As they were about to perform the EKG to try and find answers I passed out one more time. This truly was the scariest moment of my life as I felt nothing. I could only see the doctors and nurses running around yelling things in urgency. The doctor held a breathing device on my face and the last thing I remember is him saying they were going to put me to sleep to help figure out what’s wrong. My heart rate dropped to 30 bpm, and my blood pressure to 55/20.

I woke up three days later. It had taken only about 24 hours for me to go to from perfectly normal health to critical condition in ICU. I was intubated for these days, heavily sedated, and had IVs in both my wrists, arms and in my neck. When I woke up they said that I had double pneumonia and suffered from septic shock. (Sepsis and Pneumonia) I had no idea what this was, but they said it was a blood infection that spread throughout my whole body, which caused my kidneys to fail. The doctors caught what happened in time to stop the kidneys from completely failing by giving me many antibiotics.

At the time I did not know this, but when I was out of the hospital my parents told me that if we had gone to the hospital two hours later I could have died. A doctor told my parents that even after catching what had happened it was not unlikely that I may be dead within 24 hours and that they should be prepared for that.

When I woke up I saw three posters completely covered in signatures by all my friends at school. They had started a collection for my family at school, which many people helped donate to. I had also checked my Facebook and saw over 250 people had expressed their prayers, wishes, and most importantly love to me. I can’t explain how grateful I am to this day for everyone’s support. My friends visited me in the hospital every day. It was the love I needed to help get better, my motivation to get out of the hospital as soon as possible.

To this day the doctors have no clue as to how I got so sick so fast and how I recovered so fast. The doctor told me that “there is no explanation, we’re going to keep doing tests but I think someone is watching out for you up there.” It may have been a miracle, it may have just been the antibiotics I was given. Whatever it was, it saved my life and helped me go to my Graduation and Senior Prom just 10 days after getting Sepsis.

I am very active, as well play all different types of sports. I was 17 when it happened (my 18th birthday being 2 weeks after I got out), so it can truly happen to anyone.

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