Jill W.

I am a healthy, active 50 year old. Next Wednesday will be the one year anniversary of waking up with pain in my knee like I slammed it into a wall overnight. I rode my bike easily to an exercise class at 6 am but by 8 AM my knee was a giant ball and I couldn’t put any weight on the leg.

A first visit to the ER didn’t show signs of fever or redness so I was sent home at noon with crutches and instructions to return if fever . By 3 pm the fever had set in and I could barely walk. The pain was excruciating. The scariest part was the lethargy. I was so sick, finally made it to the bed and was just ready to sleep, but in the back of my mind I knew this wasn’t right. I could barely make it out of the bed and door from the pain. (Sepsis and Bacterial Infections)

A second ER visit at 5 pm with 104 fever and redness spreading across the whole leg resulted in emergency surgery by 2 am the next day to remove a patellar bursae. Perhaps the scariest day was three days after surgery, a hospital stay and IV antibiotics, The infection was worse and had spread further. Only through an infection consultant and change of antibiotics was I able to leave a week later. Insomnia, low blood pressure, lethargy continued. The cause is still unknown which is on its own unsettling, I still get frightened to think of what would have happened had I waited for care.