Deborah F.
My sepsis story begins November 1 2016.
I woke up that morning with shivers. Around noon the nausea, vomiting and fever started. I'm not sure how high my temp got that day but I do remember having a 101 temp a couple of hours after taking tylenol. I stayed in bed all day. Overnight is when things began to change. I started to get pain in my right shoulder, shortness of breath and my vision was like I was looking in a tube. I rationalized all away at the time.
The next morning my dad, who I live with, came into my room to check on me. I told him I needed to go to the doctor. As I was getting dressed, I realized that something was really wrong. It took my 30 mins to get dressed. Every time I put an article of clothes on I had to stop for 5 mins to catch my breath. By this time I knew that I needed to go to the hospital instead of the doctors.
I got to the ER around 10 am. As soon as my vital signs were taken I was taken to the back and put on oxygen. At first they thought I was just dehydrated from the vomiting the day before. The fluids did not help my blood pressure. They rather quickly decided it was probably sepsis. I was in and out of consciousness but I remember quite a bit. I was calm and not very worried. I am a nurse so I guess knowing what they were doing helped. I was started on three different antibiotics and medications to help with the blood pressure. I was put on bipap for a while, which forces air into your lungs. After a couple of hour and no improvement, it was decided that I needed to be ventilated. I was transferred to the ICU around 4 pm. I was given something to knock me out because I was fighting the ventilator and that is all I remember for a week. I spent a total of fifteen days in the hospital, including ten in the ICU.
I later learned that when I arrived at the ER my BP was 70/30 and my respiration's were at 40 (normal is 20). My sepsis was because of double pneumonia. I was lucky. Sepsis was recognized early. All of my limbs remained intact. My kidneys had only mild temporary damage. To this day I have many of the usually post sepsis problems, fatigue, widespread aches and pains, brain fog and insomnia. I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia but I know that it is Post Sepsis Syndrome.