Michelle Fitzpatrick

Survivor

Ever since I was diagnosed with breast cancer in the summer of 2012 and started on hormone therapy in 2013.  (Sepsis and Cancer) After four rounds of chemo, I began getting UTIs somewhat frequently. I got to the point where I pretty much knew if one was coming on. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections) In the Fall of 2017 I started feeling bad and just knew it was another UTI. However, Hurricane Irma was headed our way, so I called my physician and asked her to send a prescription to the drugstore, which she did, just before it closed, I might add. Before calling my doctor I first went by an Urgent Care facility but they were already shut down because of the storm. So my doctor prescribed the ABX without doing a culture because of the weather. I was grateful, and thought I would be fine. I began the medication right away.

A few days later I felt somewhat better, but still did not feel great so I had the ABX prescription she gave me refilled and made an appointment to see my physician. However, I just figured the reason I hadn’t started feeling much better was due to all of the work, stress and anxiety due to the storm. But decided I should go ahead and see my doctor just in case. My appointment was on a Friday about a week after the storm had gone. My doctor ordered a culture, but when I asked if she was going to change the ABX I was taking, and I don’t know why I asked her that, but something told me things weren’t going well with the ABX she had prescribed for me. She said she wanted to wait to see what the culture would find on Monday. By the way, the ABX she prescribed was one of the best, so I think she figured I would be OK over the weekend at least.

Well by Saturday night I was seriously, seriously ill, or at least felt so. I was out of it most of Saturday night, worse than when I went through chemo. I think I may have been hallucinating. When I woke-up Sunday morning I felt bad, but better than I had during the night. I had just turned 66 and live by myself. I have gone through a lot of serious medical stuff by myself in the previous four years, but this felt like a horrible, horrible case of the flu. So I decided to go back to the Urgent Care Facility. By the way, I was still taking doses of the ABX my doctor had given me originally.

By the time I drove myself to the Urgent Care place, I was starting to feel worse again. I begged the staff to do any test they could think of, all of which came back negative. I just did not want to go to the hospital. I had spent so much time at doctors’ offices and in hospitals the last few years, I didn’t think I could take another hospital stay. Finally the physician came in and told me I had to get to the ER as soon as possible. They would arrange any transportation I needed to get there. Thank God a friend who was working close by was able to take a few minutes off, came and got me at the Urgent Care Facility, then drop me off at the ER. The urgent care facility and the hospital were only about four miles a part, thank goodness. By this time I could not walk.

The ER staff came and got me out of my friend’s car and rushed me into the ER. Though I was pretty out of it, that was when I suspected something was really wrong with me to be seen so quickly. I mean the nurses and doctors started working on me right away. My white blood cell count was extremely high, close to the top of the range, and I was seriously dehydrated. But when they told me I would need to be admitted, I still didn’t know what exactly was wrong with me.

To make a long story short, I was in the hospital for six days on IV ABX. Three times longer than when I had my double mastectomy and each time I had my two knees replaced. The doctors told me the next morning I was very, very sick and that is when I first heard the word septic. What had happened is even though the ABX my doctor had prescribed was a good one, it was not effective against the bacteria that my body was trying to fight.

So my case may be one for the books. I mean had gotten in touch with my doctor, I was on medication, I had seen a physician, I had done what I should have done when feeling so bad, but getting the wrong medication may have ended up causing me much more serious consequences than it did. When I saw my physician a week after getting out of the hospital, I think she felt really bad about what had happened and maybe about what could have happened. But my feelings were, she did try to help me the best she could under the (weather) circumstances.

I still did not really understand the seriousness of the situation I had been in until about six weeks or later. I was on the computer, pursuing the Internet when I came upon an article that said, “Here are the five deadliest diseases, and we aren’t talking about cancer or heart issues.” Well that got my curiosity and I looked at the five slides and read the text for each the article contained. OK, I thought. I am familiar with these first four diseases, and could understand why they could be deadly. Well, then the fifth slide and text appeared it was about sepsis. I almost fell out of my chair, and actually felt physically sick to my stomach that I had experienced such a serious and potential deadly disease/condition, one in which could have had serious consequences. Then a few weeks later I read an article in People Magazine about a young mother who became septic, the doctors could never pinpoint exactly how the infection got started, and she ended up having both of her feet and hands amputated. This time I actually started to gag, I felt so sick to my stomach.

Prior to this happening to me, I had never heard about sepsis, even when one of my breast got infected about three weeks after my mastectomy. I mean I was told to be at the hospital the first thing the next morning to be operated on again and that I may have to be admitted to the hospital to be put on IV ABX, but I wasn’t told what the risk was to having that infection. Thankfully, my plastic surgeon was able to do something about the infection, which took about an hour in the operating room and I was able to go home the same day. But no one really said anything about septicemia to me at that time.

I was glad to read the article about the 72-year-old woman who went through an experience like mine. My doctor told me it would take about a month to fully recover/recuperate, but I still get very tired, very quickly as the woman in her story mentioned, seven months later.

Unfortunately, I also get a little panicky if I feel what I think may be another UTI coming on, so I self-test at home, and have been to the doctor a couple of times for testing. I have had another UTI since the one that caused me such problems last fall, but the doctor jumped on that.

Combined with the lingering fatigue I still experience from chemo, even though I had my last chemo treatment a few years ago, but have since found out that this is not an unusual after effect, and the further tiredness I have experienced since dealing with being septic, I am not anywhere near the ‘energizer bunny’ people use to call me.

However, I am alive, with all limbs in tact, and doing OK. I now have accepted the physical limitations I seem to have and have altered my life and just don’t do near what I use to. But I feel so blessed that I made it through breast cancer and a serious illnesses (not to mention two TKR) and I thank the Lord everyday for His goodness.

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