Sepsis: The Silent Killer

Sepsis: the life-threatening silent killer that kills in one person on average every 2.8 seconds. You have never met anyone who has had sepsis, well hi.

On November 24th 2019 my life changed forever, the day before Chelsea and I had spent the evening in Bedgebury for a Christmas event and well little did we know that in 24 hours’ time my life would be on the line. Minutes away from being a victim of the ‘silent killer’ known as sepsis, you just could never call it. Sepsis isn’t painful, its not like banging your head or cutting your hand on a knife, its this indescribable feeling a feeling emptiness, somethings not quite right. A feeling you just can not describe however, you have this feeling of ‘I’m going to die’ you just know… when you know you know!

There I was trying to get some pain killers out of a packet, but I couldn’t I just couldn’t hold this packet still enough to take a tablet out of the box, I lost all sense of control my body was trembling, I was grey, white, blue and yellow all at the same time, and I was cold, soooo cold but I had a temperature of 40.00 degrees. My heart raced, I couldn’t catch my breathe and the next thing you know is a few moments of my mum being on the phone to 999 paramedics were at my bedside that’s when you know somethings wrong. Cannulas and fluids were in within minutes and Chelsea had packed a bag for me, once I was stable enough to go on the road, we were off. Blue lighted to my nearest hospital Chelsea holding my hand whilst I tried to stay awake, whilst I muttered ‘I’m going to die’

Majors/minors none of that mattered it was like a scene from casualty we were greeted by a whole group of doctors, nurses, specialists, consultants and into resus we went, hours felt like seconds, I’d never had so many people prodding and poking my skin for strong enough veins to hold cannulas, I sobbed, angry, confused, scared, sad and anxious, I thought I was going to die, 19 years old had achieved nothing in her life, I thought I was going to die, I knew I was going to die. One minute I was awake; one minute I was asleep. But I was on every concoction of antibiotics from Ketamine to Morphine to everything and anything in between.

10th December 2019.

Almost one and a half weeks later I was discharged from the hospital, lost weight, and did not realise how much one life changing moment really would change my life.

(please be mindful that lots of sepsis survivors do struggle with PTSD and other mental health illnesses from the experiences they went through, the aftermath of being ill and having already had sepsis; survivors do automatically go back to that sepsis place and can become scared of getting unwell too. All we ask is that you look out for the signs of sepsis, you dial 999 if you believe someone may have sepsis. You check up on those who have suffered with it and you are always KIND and non-judgemental to those who have suffered and will continue to suffer for the rest of their lives)

I am not here to tell you a story about how I almost died a year ago and how much life changed after that… I’m sitting here to beg you, plead with you, teach you the signs of SEPSIS, to tell you that if something doesn’t feel right… go to the doctors, I’m begging you to get a UTI checked if it doesn’t go away after three days… I am asking you not to leave an opened wound dirty, I’m telling you to clean it, disinfect it and keep an eye on it. Most importantly I am telling you this small bit of information could change and SAVE your life.

I thought I was going to die without achieving the things I wanted to achieve, I was life for leasing other people and doing life not quite how I wanted to do it. Sepsis taught me that life is too short to care about other peoples opinions, to not live for the memories or to take the risk because you are too scared to do so, it taught me that we have a choice to LIVE or to EXISIT. I ask you to choose to LIVE everyday and make something of your life because it’s far too short!!

1 Year on from SEPSIS