Nicole Harpster

2023 was the hardest year ever, I thought at the time. I lost my husband to ALS, in the summer. It was almost a relief to not see him so debilitated, but the sadness was certainly huge. A few months later, some friends took me to Fiji, for some much needed R & R.

We had literally been at the resort for an hour and decided to get in the ocean. Immediately I saw the most beautiful blue starfish, and as I reached for it, my foot caught, and I fell on my knees in coral. I knew it was bad, I was still close to the shore and got out, I couldn’t even look at it. I just wrapped them and waited. I didn’t move at all.

We got to the Fijian hospital and they cleaned out the puncture ones as best they could and did a small surgery to so my legs back up. I decided to stay for the rest of the week and I was in pain I didn’t get in the ocean, but I wasn’t gonna miss out .

I looked and after 10 days of antibiotics, it looked OK but I started feeling really sick. I was busy at work, but my feet and leg started swelling immensely and this has never happened to me before. I started feeling congested but just kind of shrugged it off. After coming home early from work, I was in the most pain I’ve ever been in in my entire life. A friend met me at home and the next thing I know was two weeks later waking up in ICU. I had surgical wounds on my neck, my back and I couldn’t move at all. (Sepsis and Bacterial Infections)

I have been diagnosed with septic shock and toxic shock. After leaving the ICU the sepsis kept coming back and I ended up being on hospice for four months. My infection had spread in between the striations of my muscles. Something the doctors had never quite seen before. I did a lot of thinking and I feel like spiritually healing helped me a lot too and along with my doctors help I prayed myself out of dying or letting the infection take over. A year later and I’m feeling a lot stronger and I have a lot more exciting things happening in my life and I’m starting to feel like myself again I’m so thankful for every single day that I have now you can’t believe how fast it could’ve all gone away all the months of fighting this were worth it. I just got remarried and I couldn’t be happier and I’m so grateful for everything..