7. The Diagnosis

I heard the word “sepsis” mumbled the very first night I was in the ER. After that-no one; not one single person mentioned it again to me or the three family members who were there with me. When the infectious disease doctor from the hospital visited my room followed by the cardiac doctor on day 4, I was told the same thing from both of them: I had gotten an infection in my uterus called endometritis. The bacteria that was found throughout my entire body, including the one attacking my uterus where it all started, was STREP A. (Strep A is NOT the same thing as Strep B. Strep B is something that every woman is tested for during pregnancy. Should a woman carry this bacteria, it can potentially be dangerous to the newborn baby and extra precautions would be taken. I tested negative for Strep B.) 

Strep A is a common bacterium that is found on the skin or in the throat (often referred to as Strep Throat) These bacteria are spread by direct contact with nose and throat discharges of an infected individual or with infected skin lesions. Although it was mentioned that endometritis is not uncommon for women after having a baby, Strep A in the bloodstream is. (After all was said and done, everyone from my second infectious disease doctor, to pediatrician to chiropractor to PCP to my therapist, each person appeared to be stunned when I told them it was Strep A that caused the infection in my uterus which then spread to my bloodstream: “How did that happen?” I heard on more than one occasion.)

I have no way of knowing when the infection started or how I got it. I can only speculate that it began while I was in the hospital after having Luke when the cramping started. But no matter the time frame, the chills I had Thursday night was the first indication the infection began to spread to my bloodstream. 

So what is sepsis? Sepsis is the result of a massive immune response to bacterial infection that gets into the blood. According the Sepsis Alliance website, “Your immune system usually works to fight any germs to prevent infection. If an infection does occur, your immune system will try to fight it…. However, for reasons researchers don’t understand, sometimes the immune system stops fighting the “invaders” and begins to turn on itself. This is the start of sepsis.“

There are three stages of sepsis: sepsis, severe sepsis, and septic shock. If a person is septic, it IS an emergency as it can kill within hours and nearly everyone who is in stage three is cared for in the ICU. According to the Sepsis Alliance, “sepsis takes an estimated 270,000 lives every year in the United States. It takes more lives than opioid overdoses, breast cancer and prostate cancer combined.” 

A few weeks after I was home, I was still having issues. Unfortunately I was not getting a lot of help from my doctors anymore so we decided to find another infectious disease doctor not related to the first group. In doing so, we obtained a copy of my records where we saw for the first time that when I went into the ER that Saturday, I was in stage 3: severe sepsis/septic shock (the only thing keeping my body from going into full shock was my blood pressure, although close, did not dip below a certain number.) 

During the follow up appointment with our second infectious disease doctor, we found out that Strep A Sepsis has a mortality rate of 60% and with every hour sepsis is not treated, that rate increases. Combining the fact that I sat on sepsis for more than 36 hours, and had an already compromised immune system from just having a baby, all he could say was “it very easily could have gone the other way.”...