Maxine T.

On July 14, 2025, I was a fundraising executive, a speaker, a writer — a woman with a full life and a packed calendar. I had no idea that within two weeks, I would be fighting for my life.

It started like any ordinary summer day. Then my appendix ruptured – I thought it was food poisoning. (Sepsis and Appendicitis)

What followed was sepsis — a word I had heard but never truly understood. Sepsis from a ruptured appendix sent my body into a crisis that no amount of planning or willpower could have prepared me for. I went into a coma. A month-long coma. The kind that puts you in that liminal space between life and death, where the people who love you gather in waiting rooms and pray. I had 6 people who advocated for me and stood vigil. Max, Craig, Tisa, Julie, Mylene and Marc. And hundreds of people who couldn’t visit me, but who sent me cards and prayers.

During that coma, I became a dragonfly. I was smashed into a canvas and my body turned to gold dust in a beautiful piece of art. And then — I felt myself die. Something I had never dreamed before. But my mother, who passed away more than 20 years ago, came to me and told me clearly: it wasn’t my time yet.

So I came back.

I spent six weeks in the ICU, hooked to machines that breathed for me and filtered my blood when my organs failed. Ventilators. Dialysis. Life support. The human body is remarkably fragile and remarkably resilient at the same time, and I was living proof of both.

After the ICU came 20 days of inpatient rehabilitation — relearning how to walk. Relearning balance. Relearning the basic, human things I had spent a lifetime taking for granted. How to stand. How to move through a room. How to simply be in a body that had been through war.

Eleven months later, I am back on stages. I am writing again. I am sharing this story because I believe it needs to be told.

My hair is a little thinner now. I have scars. I am still learning what my body can do on any given day. Recovery is not linear — some days I feel strong, and some days I look at photos of myself intubated in the ICU and cry. But I am here, and I am choosing to use my voice.

I talk about kintsugi.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold. The philosophy is simple and profound: the breaking is part of the beauty. The cracks don’t get hidden or erased. They get filled with gold — weaving what was with what is — and in that integration, something new, beautiful and even stronger is created.

That is what sepsis did to me. It shattered me. And I’m reborn – in gold.

Before this happened, I had never truly understood what sepsis was. I didn’t know it could come from something as common as a ruptured appendix. I didn’t know it could take you from a normal summer afternoon to a month-long coma in a matter of days. I didn’t know that surviving was only the beginning — that the months after would demand just as much courage as the fight itself.

I know now.

If there is one thing I want anyone reading this to take away, it is this: learn the signs of sepsis before you need to. Know that it can happen to anyone, from infections that seem manageable. And if you or someone you love survives it — be patient. Healing takes time. Relearning takes time. Finding yourself again inside a changed body takes time.

But we can get there.

Eleven months ago, I was lying in an ICU bed, unconscious, while machines kept me alive. Today, I am standing. I am speaking. I am writing.

I chronicle this journey — the hard days and the hopeful ones — on my Substack, The Kintsugi Diaries. Come find me there. Ask me anything. You don’t have to walk this road alone.

Our scars are not something to hide. They are the gold in our kintsugi. They are proof that we were here, that we fought, and that we chose to come back.