Mission Trip to Colombia: the Aftermath - Sepsis

Grandparents' Day came to the hospital!

On Thursday, August 21, I arrived in Huntsville around 1:30 pm, exhausted from 16 hours of travel, but excited to see my family. My daughter and grandbaby met me at the airport, and we had a wonderful visit. I got started on the laundry when I got home and couldn’t wait for my husband to return from work. By 8:00, we were asleep.

Friday morning, I woke up eager to return to my job at the hospital. I couldn’t wait to see the moms at my breastfeeding support group. After a long day at work, catching up on visits and calls, I  was asleep by 9:00 and slept until almost 10:00 Saturday morning. I awakened refreshed, feeling like I had finally caught up on my sleep.

My "Stomach Bug"

Normally on Saturdays, I help my husband create the church bulletin, then we go to church to turn on the AC late in the afternoon. We were at church when my stomach suddenly began to cramp, and I ran to the bathroom. My diarrhea continued all night; I blamed it on the ice cream treat that we had shared earlier in the afternoon. I felt rough by bedtime, so we went to bed early again. I woke up around 4:00 feeling awful. After two more sleepless hours, I got up to shower. But after the shower, I felt so weak that I fell back into bed.

I’m not only the pastor’s wife at our little church; I also lead the music with another wonderful young woman. So missing church isn’t usually an option for me. Therefore, I pulled myself together and left with Keith for church. However, I felt so weak that I couldn’t even stand up to sing, let alone try to lead music. I was also spending a lot of time in the bathroom. After church, we came straight home, and I went to bed. Sunday night, I had such intense night sweats that I had to change my nightgown in the middle of the night.

Monday, the diarrhea continued, and I was certain I had picked up a stomach bug. I called my boss to tell her I was sick and wouldn’t be in. Fortunately, I have an amazing nurse manager who is very understanding! On Tuesday, the diarrhea stopped, but I still felt unbelievably weak. Nevertheless, I had promised a Haitian mom I was working with that I would take her and her baby to an appointment with a pediatric dentist that afternoon. Therefore, I went ahead and made an appointment to see the Nurse Practitioner at my doctor’s office, too.

Uh Oh...It's More Than a Bug...

I honestly don’t know how I managed to drive. I shouldn’t have. But God is so gracious, even when I’m stubborn. When I got to my appointment, my NP said I had Traveler’s Diarrhea and needed to hydrate by drinking Gatorade. My heart rate was 133, but I had so much mental fog that it didn’t register with me how problematic that was. I called my daughter Sarah on the way home, and she was startled by the high heart rate. As an ER nurse, she felt like I needed IV fluids, so she made plans to take me to her husband’s clinic the next day. Tuesday night, my night sweats were horrible. I not only soaked my nightgown, but the sheets were so wet, I had to sleep on a towel. I was already septic, but didn’t know it.

My daughter Sarah and her husband Steven may have saved my life!

Wednesday morning, we arrived at Synergy when they opened; they were expecting me. They immediately set me up with a bag of fluids and took blood to check my metabolic status. The results of my bloodwork startled everyone. They said I had an acute kidney injury from dehydration. My son-in-law, an ER physician, wanted me to come to the hospital when his shift began at 2:00. We had time to go to my grandson’s swimming lesson before I had to be at the hospital. While we were watching his lesson, I began shaking uncontrollably. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was experiencing my first bout of rigors.

At the hospital, Steven got me into the first bed available on his pod. He was extremely thorough as he tried to figure out what was happening with me. Several hours after I arrived, I spiked a fever, and the rigors began again. My younger daughter Anna was with me and tried to calm me down as I watched my heart rate continue to rise, my blood pressure go down, and my Oxygen levels go down as well. Although she was terrified because I looked so bad, she put worship music on her phone and placed it on my shoulder. I asked her to pray over me, and she did. During that awful time, my ER nurse, Ethan, never left my side. He was attentive, professional, and incredibly compassionate.

...It's Sepsis!

By that time, Steven had realized I was septic and began dosing me with strong broad-spectrum antibiotics. Around midnight, I got moved to the G pod: hospital purgatory. It was a real room with an actual bed (as opposed to the ER stretcher). However, visitors had to sit on the top of the white trash can at the foot of my bed since there wasn’t a chair. And the bathroom was down the hall, so each time I had to go (which was often since they were pumping me full of IV fluid), my IV pole and I had to make the trek down the hall. I couldn’t wait to leave purgatory for a room upstairs; finally, around noon, they took me to hospital heaven on the third floor!

My husband, mom, and kids made me feel very loved.

Early Thursday morning, they told me that I had an infection in my blood, and by that afternoon, they determined that it was a rare strain of E. coli that I brought home with me from Colombia. My nurses took great care of me, and my husband, mom, and children made sure I felt very loved. Friday was Grandparents’ Day at my grandson’s school – his last one since he’s in 8^th grade. Since I couldn’t go to him, he came to me, and we had a lovely visit!

After church on Sunday, they let me go home! It was wonderful to get back to my own bed. I rested for a few more days, then slowly began to work again. However, I still got tired very quickly; sepsis fatigue was an ongoing problem for a couple of weeks. After a month, though, I feel like myself again. I praise God for my amazing daughter and son-in-law, who were so quick to recognize how sick I was. And I give Him the glory for my amazing recovery! God is good!!