Kathy Towle

After having major back surgery and being discharged to home, I developed sepsis. (Sepsis and Surgery)

A lot of circumstances lead up to this, but I won’t elaborate further. I was home and felt well for 2 days. Third day not so well and the fourth day the homecare nurse was coming to take my staples out. When she arrived, I was feeling really weak, disoriented, and was vomiting. My blood pressure was 77/44. And I had a raging fever. She had my husband rush me into the hospital.

I went unconscious just after we arrived and was out til the next morning when the doctors were finally able to stabilize me for the ambulance trip back to the hospital where I had my surgery. There I had my surgical site reopened and flushed, then packed with antibiotic pellets and reclosed. Then onto IV antibiotics for 7 weeks and am now on oral antibiotics for 2 months. From there, I don’t know yet as I’m still on the oral antibiotics.

I’m 73 years old and very lucky to be alive. So far, I have noticed my eyesight is affected, I am very weak, and not unsteady. Before all this happened I was an avid gardener and loved being active. I want to tell people going for surgery to be hyper aware of what goes on around you and and how you feel. If you think you have a UTI demand a test, don’t accept “just drink more water” as I did. Had I realized UTIs and E.coli run hand in hand I certainly would have been insisting on a test. If you are running a fever, as I was, don’t accept just Tylenol without an explanation for your fever.

The absolute best scenario is to have a knowledgeable person as your advocate while you are in hospital.