Samara C.

On 12/23 I started having pain in my right leg. I didn’t think anything of it and kept on as usual. Christmas Eve I woke up feeling horrible and now had abdominal pain and diarrhea. I checked my temperature and I was 102.2. I started taking Ibuprofen and Zofran and tried to keep drinking. My husband had to work that night so my 12 year old son said he’d make sure that I had lots to drink.

The next morning I was miserable. My husband came home and went to bed after checking on me. Around noon I said I think I need to be seen, but I need to take a shower. I then spent three hours attempting to take a shower, but falling back to sleep. At that point my husband threatened to call an ambulance and I managed to get out to the car. We arrived at the emergency room and I muscled up the strength to walk in where the person checking me in grabbed a wheelchair. I was whisked back to a room and things moved fast after that. My blood pressure was 73/30, they immediately began giving me IV fluid and drawing labs. I was still in pretty horrific pain in my right groin and right knee.

I ended up on medication to increase my blood pressure after five liters of fluid. I was in the ICU and it was a blur. I spent the next three days barely able to help myself and barely aware of what was going on with an acute kidney injury and liver failure. All the cultures came back negative, but I had free fluid in my abdomen and inflamed lymph nodes. I spent five days in the hospital and was discharged with three more days of antibiotics.

Once discharged and completed the antibiotics my pain increased and I started to spike fevers, initially 100.7, then 102.2, 102.8. I ended up returning to the ER where I was again treated for sepsis. I was transferred to another hospital for infectious disease. After a huge work up, they began antibiotics again. I spent nine more days in the hospital. The working diagnosis is that I microperforated my colon and then developed a multi streptococcus infection. (Sepsis and Perforated Bowel, Sepsis and Bacterial Infections) Once released I am still incredibly fatigued and just not my normal self. But I survived.

Source: Samara