That's what killed my brother Kevin. Also killed our father in 1986. 💔

May 2023 I rushed DH to the hospital ER. He had double pneumonia. Absolutely no white blood cells to fight with. (Due to multiple myeloma we found out later). He went septic, then septic shock. Kidneys and liver started shutting down, went into Afib. Had to be intubated for 5 days. 11 days in the ICU, 18 days total in the hospital. He was literally at deaths door.

Sepsis is not to be taken lightly. Glad you're ok petalique.

katlan, I’m so sorry for your enormous losses.

It often gets overlooked for lack of awareness and training.

I am fine. I had septicemia (did not know it, just that I was really ill).

I got very sick and went to the ER two times and was dismissed. I probably looked okay. I had no idea why I was so ill.

Here are some stories of sepsis survivors. Many of these people were also dismissed and it cost them greatly.

🔹 https://www.sepsis.org/education/patients-family/faces-of-sepsis/

One story:

Megan Brunson

Summarize

Survivor

I’ve spent thirty years as an ICU nurse, caring for some of the sickest patients imaginable. I’ve watched sepsis steal time, health, and sometimes lives. I’ve taught families what it means, reassured terrified patients, and acted quickly when the signs appeared. I thought I understood sepsis. I never imagined I would become the patient fighting it.

I was traveling for work when it began—an ordinary evening, dinner with a coworker, nothing remarkable. Then, out of nowhere, a bolt of abdominal pain hit me so sharply it stole my breath. I brushed it off as gas, something I’d sleep off. After all, I’d worked through worse. I excused myself, returned to my hotel, and told myself it would pass.

But it didn’t.

Inside that hotel room, the pain escalated into something unthinkable. Waves of nausea, vomiting, and relentless diarrhea left me weak and disoriented. My judgment—usually sharp, trained by decades of critical care—became clouded. I kept insisting it was nothing serious, that I just needed rest. I was alone, incapacitated, and unable to truly process what was happening to my own body.

By morning, after a night without sleep and barely enough strength to lift my phone, I texted my boss to say I wouldn’t make the workshop I had flown in for. Then I texted my husband. He called immediately. He’s not medical, but he listened to my symptoms and said something that hadn’t even crossed my mind: “It might be your appendix. You need to go to the ER.”

Appendix? I had been so focused on minimizing my symptoms that the possibility hadn’t even occurred to me. Still, I could barely stand. I ordered an Uber to the closest ER—only a quarter mile away—and somehow made it to the car.

The moment I arrived, things moved fast. They took me straight back and had a CT scan done within ten minutes. Even then, I hadn’t looked at my initial vitals. I was still convinced this was appendicitis.

When the results came back, the doctor told me it wasn’t my appendix—“only diverticulitis,” he said. Before I could process that, another physician walked in, speaking not to me but to the nurse: “Her WBC is 35. Do the sepsis bundle and workup.”

I froze. I knew exactly what that meant.

Within minutes, I had two large‑bore IVs, liters of fluids running wide open, and four different antibiotics dripping into me. My heart rate was in the 140s. My blood pressure was in the 80s. They kept using the phrase “septic picture,” and I knew how close I was to the edge. I wasn’t sent to the ICU, but I was circling it for a good hour or two. Only after aggressive fluids did I start to feel even remotely human again.

My liver labs were sky‑high. My body was in full crisis.

I was admitted to a regular room and told repeatedly that diverticulitis was the cause. But something didn’t add up. My pain was still in the lower right quadrant—classic for appendicitis, not diverticulitis. I needed high doses of pain medication, both IV and oral. I couldn’t tolerate food. Days passed. Three. Four. Five. My labs improved, but my symptoms didn’t.

On the fifth day, I finally insisted: “Something is still wrong.”

With no other ideas, they ordered another CT scan. This time, the answer was unmistakable—multiple pelvic abscesses. The next day, Interventional Radiology placed a drain. It stayed in, tethered to my right backside, a constant reminder of how sick I had been. The output of the drain was cultured but nothing impressionable (gram positive), but also I had been on antibiotics for 5-6 days prior, so no answers here.

After 12 days in the hospital, I was discharged back to Texas—with the drain still in place and almost no discharge planning. The instructions were vague, telling me to follow up with my PCP or “any ER” to have the drain removed. As a medical professional, none of that made sense. Who was responsible? Who would know what to do?

I didn’t want to fly with the drain, imagining the nightmare of explaining it to TSA, so I drove ten hours home from Tennessee to Texas. When I saw my PCP, he was unsure and suggested a general surgeon or an ER. Again, none of it aligned with what I knew should happen.

So I advocated for myself. I called my former employer’s IR department and asked exactly what they needed to remove the drain. Eventually, after about two weeks—once the drain stopped producing output—it was removed. I stayed on antibiotics for six weeks. Three months later, I had a follow‑up colonoscopy.

And still, no answers. No explanation for why this happened. No clear way to prevent it from happening again.

That uncertainty lingers. It scares me more than I like to admit.

I’ve spent my career recognizing sepsis in others. I never expected to miss it in myself. But sepsis doesn’t care how much experience you have. It doesn’t care that you’re a nurse. It doesn’t care that you’re alone in a hotel room, trying to rationalize the irrational.

My journey reminded me of something I’ve told countless families: sepsis is fast, unforgiving, and deeply humbling. And sometimes, even those who know it best can find themselves fighting it from the other side of the bedrails.

🔹 https://www.sepsis.org/faces/megan-brunson/

Another survivor’s account:

Zsuzsanna Fodor

SURVIVOR

In February 2020, my life changed in just three days. It started with what seemed like nothing serious. I felt unwell, weak, and with inexplicable chills. I went to seek medical help more than once, but I was dismissed. First, it was “nothing.” Then maybe the flu when fever and cough appeared. On the third day I was vomiting and I hardly had any urine, but I didn’t know it was a sign of sepsis, in fact we didn’t know sepsis existed and what it was. I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t explain it. I thought it was just the worst flu of my life and I would get better the next day. However on the third night I woke up at 2 AM that I couldn’t breathe.

We called the ambulance.

My blood pressure dropped to 50/20. I was rushed to the hospital at the last possible moment. I don’t remember much after that. They said that if I’d arrived just 5 minutes late, I wouldn’t be here today. What followed was a fight for my life.

I underwent emergency surgery to remove my gallbladder, as it had an infection. However strangely I didn’t have any symptoms of that or previous gallbladder issues. My body had gone into septic shock. Multiple organs were failing. I spent four days in an induced coma, ten days in the ICU. Four weeks in total in the hospital. The doctors saved my life. For that, I will always be grateful. But surviving was only the beginning.

Sepsis didn’t end when I left the hospital.

My right foot had been severely damaged due to heavy medication to keep me alive. Over time, it required partial amputation. I spent a year in a wheelchair because of the surgeries. I still can’t walk properly today. I developed chronic pain, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, insomnia, cognitive issues and PTSD. My nervous system felt permanently “on.” My body was no longer the body I knew, I felt it turned off.
I was told this might be my “new normal.” In Spain, post-sepsis syndrome is not widely recognized. There was very little structured support after I left the hospital. I felt alone trying to understand what had happened to me — and how to rebuild a life inside a body that felt broken.

The hardest part wasn’t the ICU. It was coming home and trying to function. Due to the pandemic everything shut down and I had no rehabilitation for a long time. 
It was navigating fear, trauma, and uncertainty. I realized I had to become an active participant in my own recovery. I began exploring rehabilitation beyond the basics — nervous system regulation, integrative approaches, lifestyle changes, emotional healing, conscious stress management. Slowly, year by year, something shifted. Today, I live a much fuller life than I once imagined possible. I still carry scars, I live with partial disability. But I also live with deeper awareness, gratitude, and strength.

Why I’m Sharing My Story

Sepsis is not “just an infection.”
Sepsis is your body’s reaction to an infection. It moves fast. It can take everything in days. But what many people don’t see is what comes after survival: the long-term impact, the invisible symptoms, the psychological toll.
The lack of structured post-sepsis support in many countries. I am sharing my story because:
* Sepsis awareness saves lives.
* Early recognition matters.
* Survivors need support beyond hospital discharge.

And because even after profound loss, something new can grow.

Sepsis was the most terrifying experience of my life.
But it was also a wake-up call. It forced me to re-evaluate stress, lifestyle, priorities, and the way I relate to my body. It pushed me into self-discovery, advocacy, and eventually into integrative medicine. I now see my survival not only as luck — but as responsibility. If my story can help even one person recognize the signs earlier, feel less alone in recovery, or believe that rebuilding is possible, then something meaningful has grown from something devastating.

Sepsis nearly ended my life.

Instead, it gave me a second one.
Thank you, Zsu

🔹 https://www.sepsis.org/faces/zsuzsanna-fodor/