Sepsis is no joke!

Story time: Awhile back my youngest daughter (7 at the time) got pneumonia and it landed her in the hospital. Unfortunately the bacteria causing the pneumonia got into her blood, which is what sepsis is, an infection in the blood. Another unfortunate occurrence was that the doctor's did not know what was happening, so her sepsis went untreated and she went into septic shock.

Septic shock is when your body basically says "we're really fucking sick so we're taking all the blood out of our limbs (lowering blood pressure dramatically), to help protect the vital organs, so we have some chance at surviving this". So it goes without saying that septic shock is not a very good sign, and intense critical care is required to survive it.

Once the doctors figured out what was actually happening they had us flown to the PICU at the children's hospital in the city.

When we arrived at the new PICU they immediately put her in a medically induced coma, then it was pure madness for the next 48 hours. Literally round the clock care. So many doctors, nurses, specialist coming in and out at all hours of the day and night.

The doctors recommended we sign a DNR because it got that close at times. We signed it because we couldn't bare the thought of her last moments being horribly painful when she had been through so much already. Plus if she did survive the cardiac arrest it would likely just repeat itself because she still has a ranging infection killing her. Those were some really scary days. I'm not a religious man but I can certainly see how religion would be comforting to folks in those moments.

Two weeks later my daughter was brought out of her medically induced coma. She had survived septic shock, was no longer septic, but she still had pneumonia and was requiring a ventilator to breathe. The entire stay took 4 months between the PICU and the Rehabilitation Hospital.

Unfortunately the tissue damage to her hands and feet, due to her body pulling the blood into her torso, was so significant she ended up having both feet and her right hand amputated. She lost the very tips of her thumb, pointer finger, and middle finger on her left hand, other than missing those fingertips the left hand was fine, thank goodness for that.

So yeah. Sepsis is no joke. See a doctor if you are feeling really sick or if you are sick for more than a few days. Take all of the antibiotics they give you, and monitor your vitals (temps, respiratory rate, heart rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure) as best you can with what you have available at home. If something isn't right call your doctor or go to the ER.