Shirley McGowan
My sepsis story began on Friday, October 27, 2017, when my husband and I went away for a long weekend. By the end of the first night, I was shaking from chills, I couldn’t sleep, and I felt like I had the worst flu ever with vomiting and diarrhea. My husband drove me to an urgent care the next morning, where I was misdiagnosed with gastroenteritis. I was told to rest, hydrate, and take some Tylenol, but it only got worse.
On Monday morning, October 30th, my husband took me to the emergency room of a nearby hospital. I don’t remember anything about it because I was slipping into unconsciousness, and I stayed that way for seven days.
I didn’t wake up until the following Monday, November 6th, which was the day before my 61st birthday. I felt like I was choking that day, and I thought I was in a strange house lying on a couch next to a kitchen, where a couple of women were cooking. My ankles also felt like they were being rubbed and twisted by some hands reaching up from the floor. I looked across the room, and there was a man on another couch, who was dying. I saw a woman comforting him by stroking his arms and telling him that everything would be okay. I heard my husband in that house, and I began pointing to my mouth, trying to tell him I was choking, but I couldn’t speak.
After my throat was cleared, I woke up to find myself in the I.C.U., where I had been intubated. I had an IV attached to many lines, a ten-inch abdominal incision, and I was unable to move. In the days that followed, I found out everything that happened to me. When I was admitted to the hospital, my temperature was 103.7, my blood pressure had dropped dangerously low, I couldn’t control my bodily functions, and pus was leaking heavily into my underwear. I was put on heavy duty intravenous antibiotics, and I had exploratory surgery the next morning, which was Halloween day. My Fallopian tubes were infected due to adhesions from previous c-sections, and my appendix had ruptured, so they were removed. (Sepsis and Appendicitis) At this point, my kidneys failed from the septic shock, and blood clots developed around my lungs. I needed dialysis for a total of 60 hours, 12 hours on and 12 hours off, for 5 days, and I needed continuous blood thinner drips.
The dialysis machine is what I apparently thought was the kitchen in “the house.” The women cooking in the kitchen were a nurse and the dialysis technician. The couch was my hospital bed, and the massaging hands from the floor were compression socks. The dying man is a mystery, but he was probably an imaginary person I transferred my death onto while in my Fentanyl-induced hallucinatory coma state! (Sepsis and Hallucinations) For at least three days, the doctors told my husband that they didn’t think I would make it, but I did!
I spent three weeks in the hospital regaining my strength. I still needed dialysis after I awoke, but after two four-hour sessions, my kidneys improved, and the dialysis stopped. The intravenous antibiotics made me sick with ferocious diarrhea, and I didn’t have an appetite at all. I drank soup and fruit smoothies just to get something in me. It was difficult to stand and walk at first, and I could only make it from the bed to a nearby chair or the commode. One day, while trying to walk a little further, my surgical incision started bleeding, probably from the blood thinners. It got a little easier every day though, and after three weeks, I was transferred to a rehabilitation center near home. It was a two-hour ambulance ride from the hospital! I was there for two weeks, focusing on physical therapy, and when I left to go home on December 1st, I ditched the walker I had been using!
I’m very grateful to my husband for getting me to the hospital in just the knick of time, and I’m very grateful to the medical team that saved me. I came out of septic shock with all of my limbs, and I escaped permanent dialysis. I still have to take blood thinners and have my blood tested once a week to monitor it, my hair is falling out to the point where it’s super thin and had to be cut short, and I’m still low on stamina and tire very easily, but I’ll take it! I thank God every day for giving me more time to experience life.
Right before sepsis, I was getting depressed about my birthday coming up and thinking I lived longer than the time I have left. Now, I’m a walking cliche for every saying about not wasting time and your life. Every extra day I have on earth is a blessing, and I can enjoy something I otherwise would have missed. Especially my family and friends! They really are the most important in life! Sure, I worry that I will have a setback, but that’s just another important reason for me to make the best of every day.
