Samantha Lee

I’ve just got home from hospital after a kidney infection and sepsis. I started feeling ill Tuesday 01/07/25. In the morning I had a bath before work and was shivering and didn’t feel right at all, I went to work. I had pain in my left lower back so took some Paracetamol and later in the day I was frozen and kept shivering. I left work at 5pm with the air con in the car at full heat despite it being 20 degrees outside and I was violently shaking by now.

I came straight home and got in bed fully clothed with my cardigan and slippers on and was still violently shaking and couldn’t get warm, I took some Paracetamol which took my temperature down and I then eventually felt warm at last. I spent the night between the bed sheets being wet through and uncontrollably shaking freezing it was a struggle to get out of bed just to go to the toilet. The next morning I booked in the doctor who diagnosed I had a kidney infection and I came home with antibiotics which I was told should kick in with 24 hours, and if I was no better by Friday told to contact the doctor’s again.

I spent the rest of Wednesday and Thursday bedridden in pain in my back and sweating and shivering with the bed sheets being drenched. When I was closing my eyes I was seeing the bizarrest things pop up. It was weird and they weren’t nice things that I was seeing. I was dreaming but awake and the stench from my body was a vile weird smell. I was retching although there was nothing to come up as I’d not eaten since 1 sandwich Tuesday. I had diarrhea. It seemed the antibiotics weren’t working. I went back to the doctor’s who sent me to the hospital. The hospital confirmed I had sepsis on Friday 4th July.

I was put on intravenous antibiotics, given potassium via IV, and stayed there until the infection markers came down. I also had to have a CT scan on my kidney as it was showing damage and not functioning properly, however the next day the scan results were good. No damage and my kidney was back to functioning properly. I was one of the lucky ones who caught it in time and I’m so glad I went to the doctor’s when I did and the doctors and hospital were able to spot that I had sepsis.

My children’s father died of sepsis back in 2017 and a friend ended up in intensive care for weeks due to it previously, so I had some knowledge of it and what it can do. I knew something wasn’t right as I have never in 55 years stayed in my bed like this. You should always follow your instinct when you feel so ill. It doesn’t matter if an infection hasn’t turned to sepsis at least you’ve been and got it checked before it’s too late. It was actually my birthday on the Friday, 4th July, that I spent the 1st night in hospital but I would rather have one rubbish birthday and come home from hospital unlike some people who aren’t so lucky and never come home.