I Beat the Odds
I've been MIA around here for a while.
Only partly because of the following story. A month ago (May 19), I
almost died from septic shock. I got sepsis from a urinary tract
infection and giant kidney stone. The kidney stone was completely
blocking my kidney from emptying. My local hospital sent me on to a
bigger hospital in Boise to have emergency surgery to get rid of the
kidney stone. I was feeling very sick by the time they were prepping
me for surgery. But I was so out of it, I couldn't even think to
complain to a nurse about it. Or even Brent. When they got me into
surgery, all kinds of things started going wrong. My blood pressure
dropped, temperature spiked up to over 103, and my heart started
racing. I can remember someone seemed to be yelling at me asking if
I had a family history of heart problems. The next thing I knew, I
was surrounded by a lot of people who were all talking and one of
them was telling me I didn't have the surgery, I had septic shock and
was in the ICU. And then I went back to sleep. I was in the ICU from
sunday night to Tuesday evening and then was released from the
hospital on that Thursday. It seemed like a horrific experience at
the time. I had iv's sticking out of me all over the place and was
on heavy duty pain killers for the stent they put in my kidney to
keep it draining.
The worst thing of all was that we'd
left the girls with grandma and I hadn't given them hugs and kisses
when I left them. And I almost never saw them again! I will never,
ever make that mistake again. Anyway, I had my surgery on the 6th
of June and am finally started feeling like myself again. Septic
shock takes a toll, though. I am not really myself yet, and that
will take months. I get very tired every afternoon and have to have
a nap or dinner may not get made.
One day I was doing some searching on
the internet and found a site with survivor stories. I read quite a
few and was humbled. Every single story I read was worse than mine.
Some were marginally worse like just spending more time in ICU. Some
stories were nightmares. There were people whose symptoms were
ignored by doctors and nurses. People who were hospitalized for
months. The urologist who did my surgery told us the morning I got
out of the hospital that I nearly died. But I am thankful that I was
in the hospital I was sent to. They recognized quickly what was
happening which is very important for a good outcome with sepsis and
septic shock. I am alive because I was there and not somewhere else.
25-50% of people who get it DIE. That is a really high mortality
rate. I am a really lucky, fortunate person.
I've been knitting. I finished a dog
sweater the other day and have started EZ's seamless raglan for a
chore sweater. Pictures next post!
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