It was my first week of college, my first time ever away from my parents. It was supposed to be exciting and fun, right? That’s what I figured for a perfectly healthy 18-year-old freshman like me.
Three days before my first class, I came down with the highest fever I’d ever had—a 103—and no antipyretics could break it. I went to the student clinic on day three of my illness, and they dismissed it as a mild upper respiratory infection (URI) since my COVID and flu tests came back negative. I thought I’d just have to push through like with any viral URI, but things kept worsening, and the fourth night was so rough I felt like I’d cough my lungs out.
By day five, I returned to the clinic with a terrible cough, chest pain, and dangerously low oxygen saturation (hypoxia). They diagnosed me with pneumonia, prescribed just five days of oral antibiotics, and I was preparing to head back to the dorms when the APRN said she needed to consult on my hypoxia. Minutes later, she told me they were taking me to the ER. I was outraged—I thought we’d already identified the problem, and the solution was just a trip to the pharmacy downstairs. The ER is expensive, and I didn’t want to waste my parents’ money on an unnecessary checkup.
It turns out that if my provider had respected my stubborn wishes, I’d have been dead the next day. At the ER, the initial telehealth check-up missed some of my worst symptoms. I was diagnosed with deficiencies (low potassium, sodium, magnesium, etc.), and that seemed to be it until I was abruptly sent to the back of the ER with IVs in both arms, still horribly delirious and unaware of what was happening. I remember hallucinating and shaking so badly I couldn’t even get off the toilet when they needed a urine sample. I was passing out in the waiting room only to be jolted awake by intense chills or a coughing fit. That night, I finally got a bed with oxygen, and being able to breathe again was the most incredible relief.
It was only by looking through my medical records later that I discovered I was septic and had a failing respiratory system. At the time, I didn’t even know what sepsis was, and it’s terrifying to realize how close I was to dying. I had enough time to call my friends and family or even say goodbye—just in case—but in my reckless, young invincibility, I didn’t think I was in danger. I stayed in critical care for a week and went through six different antibiotics. In the first 24 hours, I needed over 2.4 liters of IV fluid to keep my blood pressure at 100/60, and I might have needed vasopressors if I’d arrived just a few hours later.
As of today, a month has passed since my illness began. My lungs are only at 60-70% capacity, I lack an appetite, and I can’t manage things that were easy for me before, like biking around campus. I hope it’s just a long recovery process, but I’ve never been this sick in my life.
I worry every day about relapsing while I’m still fighting pneumonia or contracting C. diff because of all the antibiotics I was on. I keep researching how I went from just pneumonia to sepsis and organ failure because I’m terrified I might miss the signs if it happens again. I’ve had panic attacks, and just two days ago, a vivid nightmare where I saw myself in the mirror covered in the mottling of end-stage septic shock. Waking up, I couldn’t brush it off as just a bad dream—it felt too real, knowing how close I came to that reality if the clinic hadn’t insisted on sending me to the ER.
You’re never too young or healthy to get sepsis. I left my illness untreated for too long, and it led me here. I didn’t even know what sepsis was because I’d never heard the word before. For myself, I knew I had to learn about what came so close to killing me. If you’re reading this, you’re already more educated about sepsis than I was a month ago. Stay safe out there.
