Cali Bishop

For most people, college is a huge adjustment. You are living alone for the first time, you have new found freedom, and new friends to make. I knew my first couple of days of college would be hard- but I could never have imagined that I could be so close to death, on just my second day at school.

Tossing and turning, sweating, with severe pain all night, I got out of bed on the morning of August 31, 2022 knowing something was very wrong. I was in a state of severe mental decline- but managed to call an uber to the campus hospital. To this day, I have no memory of this. I was found unconscious, struggling to breathe, and running a fever of 106 in the elevator of the campus hospital. Someone found me, and brought me into the office where the doctors immediately called 911. I was transported to the hospital.

At 19 years old, with no previous health issues- a doctor came into the room to talk to me after a morning of testing, 18 IVs, and coming in and out of consciousness. “You are in septic shock.” He said to me. I had pneumonia, tonsillitis, and a peritonsillar abscess. They think that I went into septic shock from the tonsilitis, but there is really no way to know. My tonsils were so large that I had no airway. Each doctor I met told me I was very lucky, and that if I had waited even minutes before coming in, I would not have been alive. He suggested that my parents fly into see me, and sent me to a room in the ICU for the next week.

Following my discharge from the hospital, my tonsils had shrunk, but never to a normal size. As a division 1 athlete, this made life very hard. I saw a doctor as a follow up and he said that my tonsils were so large it was as if I was breathing through a juice box straw for months. I often woke up at night gagging, or choking on tonsils. They were so big, and I had recurrent infections. I ended up having to get my tonsils, adenoids, and the abscess removed. The surgeon said they were the biggest tonsils he had ever seen. And I wasn’t even sick when I got them out!

I did not know what sepsis was. I was not aware of the symptoms, and because of that I could have lost my life. I share my story because knowing the signs and symptoms of sepsis could help others recover to a happy and healthy life. I am proud to have survived sepsis.