Caitlin's Story

My experience with sepsis happened just over a year ago. I had just given birth and was home about 2 weeks before I became really unwell. I thought it was my body just recovering from the tear during my labor until it got to the point where I wasn't eating, vomiting, fevers, waking up multiple times during the night soaked through my pajamas from sweating yet I would still feel freezing. My skin slowly started to turn yellow. At this point, I hadn't even been able to lift my newborn son up because the pain was unbearable, and I had started to shake uncontrollably. I was brought to hospital after about a week of these symptoms which progressively had gotten worse, I was put in the covid a&e because of my fever and was left on a chair overnight while waiting on my bloods to come back.

When they got my bloods it showed elevated CRP levels of septic infection and inflammation, I was rushed for a CT and MRV and it showed all of my intestines were badly inflamed where they also started to think I had Crohn's disease. I had to get 2 blood transfusions and iron infusions along with a course of antibiotics and steroids for 7 weeks because of the inflammation, and because of sepsis, I developed reactive arthritis I'm still attending outpatient gastroenterologist appointments, and I'm meeting with the colon surgeon next week to find out if I need surgery. I was 2 weeks in hospital away from my newborn because of sepsis. I still haven't found out how I caught sepsis, and to this day, I regret holding off going into hospital sooner.