Nina Naranjo

It was the summer of 2016 and I was a WORK-A-HOLIC. I was a pricing analyst for car rentals, always on the computer, phone, or laptop pushing numbers. Needless to say with work always on my mind my health was at the wayside, I always prolonged ER or urgent care and doctor visits. I just felt like unless I was bleeding to death or unconscious it probably was not an emergency. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

July 4th I had been diagnosed with sepsis and here is how it happened.

For almost a month I had bladder pains, which I pushed aside thinking maybe it was my endometriosis. I’ve dealt with pain for a number of chronic issues so it was hard to differentiate at this point. After the initial bladder pains went numb, I started noticing difficulty urinating and it was really bothersome at work. I had the sensation of an absolutely full bladder and I was only able to partially relieve my bladder if that. Then I had gone to PR for a few days for a funeral and I guess with the emotions of that trip I didn’t recognize much, besides the annoyance of not being able to relieve myself fully. So I returned and got right back into work and I just started feeling absolutely horrible, again with other disorders I just figured something else was agitated. I didn’t think it was my bladder per se, and it wasn’t until I urinated and it was absolutely clouded that I became alarmed.

I still didn’t rush to the ER. I went home and took my temperature and my temp. is consistent 90% of the time and when it goes up or moves by the smallest bit I recognize I usually don’t feel well. So it was at 99.8 and I felt off that was not a normal temp. for me. By this point I was having severe bladder pains, cloudy urine, feeling totally fatigued and drained, foggy and frustrated and my temperature was slowly rising. I had my mom rush me to the ER and they did the basics run urine test, draw some blood, blood pressure, all that jazz. I have a high pain tolerance and I guess I didn’t look like I was in pain and they weren’t taking me seriously, my mother even had to tell me “please just look sick, if they see you laughing or feeling fine they won’t believe you.” I was laughing because I was telling jokes to stay in good spirits and distract the pain.

After a few hours (the ER was packed, I didn’t even have a room, I was in the hallway), the ER doctor came in and said the urine test was negative everything looks fine, my temperature was only a low-grade fever at the time, nothing to warrant more research. I almost cried. I looked at my mom and I looked back at the ER doctor and I told her “That can’t be, something is definitely not okay with me, my urine was absolutely cloudy and I feel miserable. Please, I need you to run that urine test again for me.” I had NEVER stood up for myself in the hospital before, but I felt too sick to not fight for my health. I was worried and so sad the doctors didn’t believe my pain or understand what I was saying. (Sepsis and Urinary Tract Infections)

Well, sure enough, a few hours later a different doctor came in and informed me they wanted to run more labs on me, I was being admitted. At this point not one doctor admitted they had failed me, no one told me why I was being admitted and everything was hush, hush. Well after about a day of blood work and meds and labs and stuff another internal medicine doctor came in the room and said I had sepsis and that had I left that day, I very well would have died. He said not many people survive with how far along it was for me.

I stayed in the hospital for 4 more days of painful injections and meds to help with pain and meds to help me urinate. It was horrible and it was a wake-up call. I kept blaming my pain on other things and ignoring symptoms that would usually warrant a second look or at least a clinic or doctor’s visit. I almost died because my own stubbornness to go to the doctors and my ER doctors lack of seriousness into my condition because I “appeared well.” Thank God instinct kicked in. Sepsis comes with so many different symptoms sometimes…I would have never guessed I was going through it. I’m just blessed to be alive and I’ve had no complications from the sepsis, I have two beautiful boys A 1 yr and a two month old and I can’t be more thankful.