Kelli Taylor
My name is Kelli. I was a healthy person for most of my life – productive, happy, grateful, and filled with hope. Amid the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, however, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. Optimistic doctors called my treatment plan a “chip shot” because of the tumor’s position— a standard surgery followed by radiation. But just after the surgery, a secondary infection cropped up, requiring another procedure. The second surgery was a success, and I finally began the delayed course of radiation. Goodbye, hospitals and cancer!
Then, just before my final week of radiation, I developed sepsis. Radiation was not kind and something toxic found its way in via my cracked, damaged skin. (Sepsis and Cancer) I didn’t feel well on that Thursday afternoon after radiation treatment and declining dinner I asked my husband and son to go out to eat without me. I was content to rest alone (with my trusted beagle Murphy.) Richard and John Luke called me from the restaurant to ask if I had changed my mind about food and offered to pick up whatever I thought I could eat. I politely declined again and told them I was really not feeling well and planned to move from the couch to the bed.
They arrived home and checked on me. After a few minutes, Richard decided to turn in early too, so he could “watch” me. Our dog Murphy always slept in his bed (spoiled) because the floor was clearly not luxurious enough for his royalty! But on that night Murphy refused to move from the hard floor on my bedside. He sensed something we did not. About an hour later, Murphy woke up Richard with his incessant bellowing. Richard reached over and touched me; my skin was on fire.
Sepsis. Within an hour, I was hospitalized in an intense, sudden fight for my life. I remember the night I thought I might die and wished I could. Months of PICC lines, antibiotics, and hyperbaric oxygen treatments followed. Lying alone in a pressurized chamber, I struggled not just with the treatment but with the isolation. My family couldn’t be with me because of pandemic restrictions. Even at home, I was tethered to a PICC line as I cycled through a mountain of antibiotics, mostly Vancomycin. This was my (and my family’s) private journey because the world, including my friends and outside support, was hunkered down due to COVID-19. And because few people understand sepsis.
Eventually, the infection responded. Physical scars were a daily reminder of the struggle, but I learned to live with it, thankful just to be alive. Two years later, with cancer far in my rearview mirror, I finally felt I was emerging from a long, dark tunnel. I felt fully back at work. We had moved to a new home, leaving behind memories of the sickness and the house that we now understood possibly contributed to my ongoing illness. I felt more like myself again at work. Our high school son, whose pandemic life had been consumed with learning to “washy-washy” PICC lines and attach Vancomycin bulbs for mom, had begun his new life as a college freshman.
Then, one September morning in 2023, it happened again. I woke up feverish and weak, my heart racing, and my body hot all over. It was an eerily familiar sensation, one that filled me with dread. Murphy had crossed the Rainbow Bridge, so the alert was up to my husband alone this time, and he sprang into action. We went to urgent care; they sent us directly to the ER. By the time we arrived, I was slipping in and out of consciousness, vomiting, seizing, and disoriented. Sepsis, again —its source unknown, its impact devastating. I remember, through my tears, saying to Richard, “I cannot do this again.” But I did,. WE did…. for ten long days, for months, for years.
Fear is my daily companion. I don’t even try to explain it because, at my core, I am a person of hope. But, the truth? I live with constant vigilance, scanning for any sign of infection. The fear comes from knowing all too well how quickly things can spiral. I try to keep up, but am aware my productivity is slower, my memory sometimes feels unreliable, my muscles ache deeply, and I can never quite shake the fatigue. I’m haunted by a quiet dread that sepsis could strike again at any moment. Still, I carry on with hope and gratitude.
My oncologists never seemed to grasp the full weight of my journey, but my compassionate and brilliant infectious disease specialist, he gets it. This doctor saw (and continues to see) me through the worst of my post-sepsis care, even arranging for long-term, standing-order antibiotics, which I now carry everywhere. The fear doesn’t dissipate, but having immediate access to these antibiotics is a comfort and a necessary intervention that could begin to save my life until I get to a hospital.
The antibiotics are my reminder that I’m fighting back.
Despite the profound changes in my life, I keep moving forward. I may not be the same, but I refuse to let sepsis hold me back. Even on the days when I feel utterly misunderstood, I know my strength. I carry on, knowing how precious each day is and how deeply I’ve had to fight to be here. The fear is real, and so is the determination to live my life on my own terms.
I am a person of deep Christian faith, and I am sure that I have (in good faith!) doled out Christian platitudes on more than one occasion. No more. God has transformed me through this sepsis journey. Post-sepsis (twice), I am more “real,” like the hairless Velveteen Rabbit. Suffering and healing, fear and gratitude, exist in a curious amalgamation. And God holds me (holds us) through it all.
