Kelsi Godfrey

Thursday, March 23rd 2023 I gave birth to my fourth son. Everything went well and it was a normal delivery. Friday, March 24 I started experiencing shortness of breath, but all of my vitals were fine. Then on Saturday, March 25 2023 everything went downhill FAST so luckily I was still at the hospital. My heart rate started going up and blood pressure dropping. I was then intubated. By late afternoon/early evening, my doctors found my uterus was infected and determined I had streptococcal toxic shock syndrome that caused severe septic shock. (Sepsis and Pregnancy & Childbirth, Sepsis and Toxic Shock Syndrome)

I was now in heart failure. They told my husband, “We can keep her on antibiotics, but the infection is too severe – she only has a couple of hours left. Or, we can do a hysterectomy – but with her current state, she won’t likely make it through the surgery.” They ended up doing an exploratory laparotomy to determine/confirm how far it spread. Luckily it only ended up being a complete hysterectomy. After about three hours the surgery was done and I was moved to the ICU. While still intubated, I was not getting any better. I was now on maximal vassopressers and was still failing. The naval hospital was all out of options so I was life flighted to a different hospital and put on ECMO life support with an Impella pump inserted. I was in heart, renal, respiratory and liver failure with my heart only working at less than 5 percent. My mortality risk was very high and no one was very optimistic that I would make it out.

I finally and miraculously woke up March 31, 2023. I will never forget the cardiologist who came in with his eyes watery who smiled and said “we didn’t think we’d ever get to see you awake.” It was so surreal hearing everything. Last I remembered I was getting a CT and fell asleep. I had developed compartment syndrome in my left leg which led to an above knee amputation on 4/12. (Sepsis and Amputations) My hands and arms had also started turning black and blistering, but luckily they started to come back. I was in the hospital for 10 weeks.

In the hospital there were a ton of setbacks like pulmonary embolisms, pneumonia, coughing up blood, and more. I had been to almost every ICU and ICU step down in the hospital, but I made it. I was in Inpatient Rehab for the last 3 weeks of my hospital stay. Two days before my discharge date I went for an MRI and bone biopsy where it was determined I had osteomyelitis. I felt so defeated but knew I had to keep going. Then, the line of demarcation had formed on my right toes. We had so much hope that they would come back like my arms did, but they were unfortunately amputated as well 6/1. I was finally discharged and able to go home on June 2, 2023 to be with my family and begin to know my baby.