Don't fuck around with SEPSIS...

 

So, Cookie's Friday didn't go the way that he had planned. 

Thursday night I came down with a 100+ fever out of nowhere.   I took some Tylenol.  At 3am, it was even higher.  Friday morning it was still higher.  And this wasn't just any old fever, this was a full-on Mrs. Lovett's radiating heat fever. Like the Husband could feel how hot I was from two feet away.

Friday morning I got in to see the doctor, who looked at me fading in and out of a stupor (like an idiot, I drove myself to the doctor's office), and said, "Yeah, I am admitting you, right this minute."  I was put in a wheelchair and literally pushed to the ER. 

Long story short, I had two things wrong.  1st, a medical condition that we thought we taken care of in 2014 with abdominal surgery was back, and 2nd, they diagnosed sepsis and had I waited another day, could have landed me in ICU.

Here's the good news, they got me in, drained enough blood out of me for tests that I might as well have been being bled by George Washington's doctor, sent me through a machine or six, and then hooked me up to a battery if IV's.  Test results came back fast.  In some instances, I had the results before the doctors did.  Of course, I had no idea what was going on, but I have never had labs in an ER come back that fast, ever.

The miracle is that in 24 hours I got to come back home.  How?  The executive summary is powerful drugs and I responded almost as quickly as the whole event started.   I am still feeling wonky, I am on multiple anti-biotics, one of which is Flagyl - which makes your mouth taste horrible - but I am without pain. 

Why tell you this? 

Well, you hear about people going into sepsis (your body going into an extreme state to fight an infection), you don't know what it is or why getting to the ER fast is vital to prevent damage or even death.  I am providing THIS LINK to the CDC.  Look at it, read it, take it seriously.

What I experienced was a swift onset of fever, my blood pressure dropped, my heart rate became irregular, I felt woozy to the point of passing out.  

How they treat it depends on what triggered it.  Because mine was in the gut, it was IV antibiotics by mouth and by IV. 

In my case, it was the high fever, sudden and unlike any other, that was the red flag for ME.  I knew something was very wrong and I should have been at the ER that night, but I kept thinking it would pass and it didn't.  

I feel lucky and I know I got very lucky.   And I also know what could have happened had I tried to tough it out.