“I’m a Nurse and I Missed My Father’s Sepsis” #how

Sepsis is a life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s response to an infection causes widespread inflammation, leading to tissue damage, organ failure, and potentially death. Early recognition and treatment are critical—every hour of delay in diagnosis increases the risk of poor outcomes.

In adults, signs of sepsis may include:

High or low body temperature
Rapid heart rate or breathing
Confusion or disorientation
Extreme pain or discomfort
Cold, clammy, or pale skin
In children and infants, symptoms can be more subtle but may include:

Rapid breathing
Lethargy or difficulty waking
Reduced feeding or fewer wet diapers
Unusual crying or irritability
A mottled, bluish, or very pale appearance
Because sepsis can progress rapidly, early diagnosis is essential. Prompt treatment with fluids, antibiotics, and supportive care can dramatically improve survival. Public awareness and clinical vigilance are key to saving lives.

#cough #health #sick

[Thobela-hx]

In France, a young woman called emergency services 3 times because she was not feeling well and knew something was terribly wrong. On the third call ( the audio of her call was realesed by authorites and l listened to it), she says l think l'm dying. The emergency operator replied callously 'Well, we are all going to die someday'. The young woman died a few hours later. Her parents took the woman to court, and the audios of her calls were released. Turns out, she had that feeling of doom/foreboding. She had tried to get help for over 2 whole days and was brushed off.

[Sheeeeerigirl]

I had sepsis and had no idea. It ended up killing my baby. All I remember was a loss of appetite, decreased urine, and joint pain. It can change to the worse so quickly. My heart goes out to the woman in the video.

[cousinmajin]

A sense of impending doom is also a common sign of heart attacks, especially in women. It often leads to women being diagnosed with a panic attack instead of a heart attack

[elzyhensley]

Sepsis took my mom out a few years ago. It’s for sure no joke.

[NiaJustNia]

I warned my mother my grandmother's symptoms were sepsis. I was ignored, and she died the following morning from chronic neglect by family. She hadn't been bathed or washed in over 6 months, and the sores from her skin sloughing in high contact areas like under her breasts was the infection entry point. They would stick her on a chair, put on the hallmark channel which is perpetual reruns so she wouldn't know what day it is so she couldn't tell anyone how long she was left unattended, and just leave her, taking advantage of the medication induced vascular dementia (which I also flagged, but it took them years to take that seriously, until they found out they could get more money if she was more disabled). That's where she slept, ate, rotted. They would scream at her for being unable to eat hard foods or not being able to get to the toilet by herself. They stopped district nurses and carers coming in so that people wouldn't notice they were pawning off all of her possessions to fund drugs and holidays abroad. Social services could never get in because they'd refuse them entry, and there's not as much forcing social services can do for the disabled and elderly. They only took her to hospital when she was turning blue and essentially comatose. Needless to say, I cut off that entire side of my family after the funeral.

[shaddowgolden]

My 15 year old daughter had a fever for 2 days that meds wouldn’t bring down and belly pain akin to period cramps. I immediately took her to ER. They said everything was fine and were going to send us home until a nurse in passing (who knew my sister) noticed that her blood pressure was extremely low and rechecked it twice. We were immediately sent to children’s hospital. My daughter was hours from death, we spent 2 weeks in the hospital. She had a severe septic kidney infection.

Thank you nurse Smiley for noticing who I was and taking an interest in my daughter’s care! You literally saved her life!!

[amandakorbe]

I had 9 abscesses in my jaw and 7 infected teeth that were left untreated for a year while I was waiting for insurance to stop fighting. I knew I was dying. I was so sick and confused and in so much pain. I had my will all filled out. Last minute they approved the surgery, saving my life. 32 teeth removed and 3 courses of antibiotics later, I'm doing great. But they were letting my teeth (which were destroyed by medications) kill me while they fought over responsibility and the bill. I told them I was sick & dying but they didn't believe me and kept saying i was being dramatic. then they checked my blood just before surgery & (you guessed it) sepsis. I told them but no one would listen

[TheNerdistheWord]

I was 5 days septic at 6 months pregnant. For 3 weeks prior I peed blood and several doctors including ER doctors dismissed my pain and bloody urine as kidney stones. On the 5th day I never woke up from the bed to go to the bathroom so my husband literally picked me up and took me to another ER 35 minutes away. They saved my life that night.

[margaretcarterjazzsinger]

I am a Black woman in Austria. After the initial surgery to remove some metal from my body, the medical staff missed the signs of infection due to the hue of my skin. I had 4 additional operations over two weeks where my blood was filtered. I'm very happy to be alive.

[JessIsUnavailable]

I had to force my boyfriend to go to the hospital last year because he was so sick and he ended up on a ventilator for three days because his whole body was shutting down due to sepsis. Multiple organ’s were failing, he couldn’t recognize his mom by the time he was in the ER. He would’ve died if he had waited one more day. He walked out of the hospital 2 months later looking like Tom Hanks from Castaway. It’s a miracle he’s alive. I thank modern medicine every day.

[Ash-kbhn]

When I was 14 I had severe tonsillitis. Doctors would bring in their students (with my permission of course) to look at my tonsils. They were huge. I didn’t want to go to school one day so I told my grandpa my throat was hurting really bad and he took me to the ER. It ended up saving my life. I had a very infectious abscess behind one of my tonsils. They found it by doing a CT scan. I was hospitalized for 3 days one of which was my birthday. They had my very strong IV antibiotics and steroids in an attempt to get rid of the abscess. I tried to convince them to let me leave because it was my birthday but they were like “Absolutely not.” I cried and cried. 😂 After my hospitalization I went to see an ENT to get my tonsils removed. I was still on strong antibiotics to make sure the abscess didn’t come back. The first ENT said “Some people just have big tonsils. I can tell by looking at them you don’t have an abscess. You need to be hospitalized AT LEAST 3 times before we will remove them.” THANK GOD my parents thought she was insane. They immediately scheduled an appointment for a 2nd opinion. The 2nd doctor looked at my throat for 3 seconds and said “Yep you need your tonsils removed.” and we scheduled the surgery. The surgery was only supposed to take 20-30 min. It ended up taking over 2 hours because the abscess was still there! The surgeon said he barely poked it and it ruptured so they had to sanitize EVERYTHING again and rescrub. He said it could’ve ruptured on its own even the next day and I likely would have died from a blood infection. I wouldn’t have felt it rupture. He said I would’ve felt drainage on the back of my throat but I wouldn’t have thought anything of it. He said by the time anyone would’ve figured it out it would’ve been too late. This was over 11 years ago and I am still pissed at that first doctor saying “I can tell there is no abscess just by looking at you.” YOU ALMOST KILLED ME. The abscess was only visible with a CT scan you dumbass. Thank God my parents knew she was full of shit and thank God the surgery was scheduled as quickly as it was by the 2nd doctor.

[EnaFawn]

Thank you for this. I almost died from sepsis 6 years ago - had been hallucinating alone in my room for 3 days when my flatmates found me and rushed me to hospital. Was hours away from an irreversible coma by the time we arrived. I'm forever grateful.

[micaiahleigh]

I’m a hypochondriac who tends to always feel a sense of impending doom so I’m just gonna add this to the list of “mum am I dying because phone calls. Bless my infinitely patient mum’s heart.

[lushpaw]

I lost my mother to sepsis 2 months ago today. I am not a nurse but had been her caregiver for 15 years. She was undergoing chemo and it was really hard on her... she was alert and arguing with me that morning about eating breakfast.. just a few hours later she couldnt breathe, was unaware of me or her surroundings and when rushed to the hospital, the dr said she wouldnt make it and looked at me with disgust. I hope that nurse is coping better than i am.

[milouod]

Also, some very typical symptoms to look out for are:
1. A person covered in sweat but when you wipe it away (on let’s say your forehead) the sweat doesn’t return
2. A bad capillary refill: you can test this by placing a finger on the persons sternum (the bone in the middle of the chest) for 3 seconds and then see how long it takes for the skin to regain color. If this takes longer than 2 seconds, the person is likely to have sepsis.

These two symptoms can be explained through the mechanism of sepsis. When someone is in septic shock (but basically all the kinds of shock like anaphylactic, obstructive and hypovolemic) the person experiences a loss in volume relatively speaking (due to an internal or external bleeding and in the case of sepsis, an infection) your body tries to compensate for this by lowering blood pressure, holding on to water (that explains the lack of urinating as mentioned in the video and the sweating symptom described in this comment) and only supplying your vital organs with volume/blood for as long as possible (your skin is not important, so that is why the capillary refill method works so well to check for shock). That is also why this disease is so dangerous, because if it goes untreated for too long, organs will start shutting down and eventually your heart wil stop too.

I don’t know if these symptoms are known in the USA to test for shock, but I am a 4th year medical student in the Netherlands and also work as a first aid volunteer at festivals and I work part time at the emergency room, so this is what I was taught in different places. Hopefully it helps :) the feeling of impending doom and feeling really unwell seems so general and too hard to spot to be honest.

[WhyWouldYou]

The cold to the touch with a high fever is what made me call the nurse's line at 10 pm last year. My 8 week old had sepsis and we had to do a spinal tap, and lots of blood work. She screamed and was miserable with all the pain but the children's ER was so quick and helpful. They discharged us awaiting the test results and called me at 4 am and said to come back immediately. She was in the PICU for 6 days. She had E Coli from gods know where and she is now 15 months and super healthy

[kaylabrownell]

I went septic as a kid, I had cat scratch fever and it caused lymphnoditis. My poor Mom was petrified when I was told I needed emergency surgery.

[WAA]

I live with my sister, a nurse, and almost died of septic pneumonia. The only real sign I noticed was that I, a normally very light sleeper, was sleeping extremely heavily for a couple weeks before I landed in the hospital. I didn't even know I had pneumonia or that I was sick at all. I just figured I was tired and out of shape.

Not long after, her long-time boyfriend died of the same thing. They spent a great deal of time together. She didn't see the signs. She had to make the difficult choice to take him off life support because he had no family around for him. He was in his late 20s.

It isn't always that obvious. I hope this person can move past any guilt they are feeling about their dad.

[bxbrexo]

After a complete knee replacement surgery, my mother was at the recovery stage in which intermittent walking was encouraged for rehabilitation. I told her I was walking down the road to the gas station one day to buy a drink and she asked if she could come to get a bit of walking in for the day. We had made it about 75 meters when she suddenly stopped and said she needed to go back. She said she felt a heaviness and instant discomfort/pain in her entire body. She apologized and simply turned around and walked away abruptly, telling me to go ahead without her and not to worry. When I returned home about 10 minutes later, I found her lying on the couch in a cocoon of 5 blankets layered and shaking/shivering SEVERELY. I asked her what was wrong and she said she just didn’t feel good, was sleepy, and couldn’t stop shivering. Her eyes were closed the whole time she was telling me this and she was speaking in a tone that was very slurred/lazy-sounding and not finishing her sentences completely. Her breathing was shallow and fast. She insisted again not to worry and she brushed it off as non-serious, saying she just needed to rest. I IMMEDIATELY told her NO, we are going to the hospital. Within the hour of her arriving at the ER, we were told tests confirmed that MRSA was running rampant throughout her body and the sepsis had progressed so quickly that if we had waited a few hours longer without treatment, she would be dead. She was on IV antibiotics for 6 months after that. Using the strongest antibiotics out there, she was attached to an IV pole and a bag of fluids 24/7 at home. THEN for a whole YEAR after that, she was on very strong oral antibiotics that thankfully rid her system of the infection. I worry every day about her should she need antibiotics for anything in the future… I’m sure her system ended up developing antibiotic resistance and won’t react as effectively to antibiotics if she winds up needing them again later on. I’m so thankful we caught the signs quickly and immediately took her to the hospital. I was only 20 years old when this happened and struggling internally with my mental health; I don’t know what I would have done if I lost her at that difficult stage in my life. Please look out for your people, y’all 💛🫶🏼

[Ahrialbaby]

My friend died from this and left behind her husband and 2 young kids. Thank you for spreading awareness.